Laboratory-Portable Infrared Reflectometer

Stability of the optical properties of materials in the space environment is a limiting technology in the development and operation of spacecraft. The complex space environment can damage exposed materials including thermal control surfaces. The thermal radiative properties of these materials are critical to maintaining spacecraft thermal control. Accurately measuring these properties is a difficult process and, currently, can only be performed on small samples in the laboratory. The proposed effort is to develop a portable, hand-held instrument for performing measurement of these properties on small or large surfaces in laboratory or in the field. The Laboratory Portable Infrared Reflectometer will use innovative new optical concepts to perform spectral total hemispherical reflectance measurements from 2 to over 25 um. Spectral data are automatically integrated to calculate total emittance of surfaces at a desired temperature. This unique instrument has many other applications within NASA, the DoD and the commercial sector.