Volume 9, Number 1 • January/February 2001

Active Particle Fallout Monitor Commercialized

The Aerospace Engineering Group (AEG) of IDEA, LLC is commercializing the Active Particle Fallout Monitor (APFM), an automated monitoring system that will benefit both NASA and private industry.

The Beltsville, Maryland-based company joined with NASA in January 1999 at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in a Cooperative Agreement to commercialize the KSC-developed prototype. The private and government sectors targeted for marketing of the commercial APFM include the aerospace, aeronautical, semiconductor processing, electronics fabrication and medical industries, or anywhere that spaceflight hardware is processed or fabricated. AEG believes there is no limit to the types of industries that would benefit from the APFM. Any industry or business that requires or has an interest in monitoring the level of fallout contamination will be targeted. This also could potentially include hotels, apartment complexes, corporate buildings or any environment where the air quality concerns occupants to the point that facility managers want to provide an air quality level of assurance. AEG’s marketing plan calls for the production and sales of 300 units in early 2001.

AEG enhanced the innovation after setting up office and laboratory operations at the Palm Bay, Florida, Open Access Cleanroom through negotiations with the Florida/NASA Business Incubation Center. The company has experience in developing contamination-sensitive spaceflight hardware and is aware of the potential problems that can result from fallout. The one-year agreement called for AEG to evaluate the system capability and performance, its market potential, quantify system reliability and improve system performance. This work culminated in production of a manufacturing prototype and accumulation of data contained in a final project report that was furnished to NASA.

NASA is using AEG’s new APFM in the KSC Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF) to monitor components for the International Space Station (ISS). The components are being prepared for flight on the ISS in cleanrooms. Validation testing of the system in the SSPF demonstrates that the technology performs as well and better than existing methods of particle detection.

Particle fallout is a source of contamination that is a concern by NASA and aerospace-related industries. Depending on the type and size of the particles, fallout can be a source of contamination that can affect the performance of sensitive spaceborne instruments and support equipment. NASA, at KSC and other centers, has been aware of this issue for several years and has sought to develop different types of monitoring systems that are designed to quickly alert spacecraft and spaceflight hardware developers and customers of possible fallout problems.

NASA developed and patented an instrument that directly images, sizes and counts contamination particles. AEG obtained license rights to the instrument and another patented KSC-developed technology to help with the project. One is an exclusive license to commercialize the "Detector for Particulate Surface Contamination" (now called the APFM), developed by the NASA Contamination Monitoring Laboratory (CML) and the former KSC Engineering Support Contractor, I-NET, Inc. The second license is non-exclusive for the "Particle Fallout/Activity Sensor," also developed by CML and I-NET.

Traditionally, measurement of the particle fallout contamination level in a facility is accomplished by placing a witness plate in the area where particle fallout is to be measured for several weeks. The plate is then transported to a laboratory where particles are manually counted under a microscope. This process is tedious, time-consuming and prone to human error, including errors caused by handling and transportation of the witness plates.

The APFM is a quantitative particle fallout monitor that measures the size and number of particles that are collected on a surface representing contamination collecting on surfaces at the point of use. The APFM can measure particles from 5 to 750 microns in diameter and calculate their contribution to percent area coverage. The instrument correctly processes irregularly shaped particles as well as fibers, and provides a quantitative measure of the cleanliness of a room according to MIL Standard 1246.

The APFM allows manufacturing personnel to take actions to eliminate contamination before it becomes a major problem. The APFM consists of two units–a processor and associated sensor heads. It works by using two CMOS imaging sensors (cameras) to examine a surface and determine the number and size of particles that are being deposited on that surface.

For more information, contact Tom Gould at NASA Kennedy Space Center (321/867-6238 ) Thomas.Gould-1@ksc.nasa.gov Please mention you read about it in Innovation.