Particulate Fall-Out Monitor to be Presented at NASA CCMPP 2017 Workshop

19/07/17

XCAM engineers will be at the 2017 NASA Contamination, Coatings, Materials, and Planetary Protection Workshop at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, USA this week to jointly present the latest developments of the PFO Particulate Fall-Out Monitor, alongside representatives from the European Space Agency (ESA). The workshop is a multi-disciplinary event attended by industry and academic professionals focussed on fostering successful space missions.

The original prototype PFO Monitor development was an ESA funded project which XCAM successfully bid and won the contract for. The PFO Monitor provides a remote, automated, real-time method of detecting particulate contamination. Initially intended for use within the fairing of rockets to measure particulate fall-out produced by vibrations during launch into space, further research and development has also focussed on producing a terrestrial-based version for use in commercial cleanrooms, to replace traditional methods such as witness plates which tend to be retrospective in nature and require human intervention. This novel use of silicon sensing technology allows particulates to be detected to below the five-micron level, providing an effective contamination control method for surface particulates.

Go to the PFO 1000 Particulate Fall-Out Monitor product page for more information