Atomic oxygen sensor telemetry

Abstract

A sensor system for a spacecraft comprising: atomic oxygen sensors including graphite strips to provide resistances that increase as the graphite strips ablate away when exposed to atomic oxygen, the atomic oxygen sensors configured to generate first sensor signals indicative of the resistances and, correspondingly, atomic oxygen fluence to which the atomic oxygen sensors are exposed; thermistors to generate second sensor signals indicative of temperature; sensor circuits that are identically configured to each other and that include first sensor circuits to convert the first sensor signals to digitized first signals and second sensor circuits to convert the second sensor signals to digitized second signals; and a controller to process the digitized first signals and the digitized second signals.