Investigations in space have been conducted in both manned and unmanned space vehicles. Space: Technologies, Materials and Structures explains the development of hardware and instrumentation designed to operate in the severe conditions of space. For the operation and repair of such vehicles, engineers and scientists must consider a broad range of practical issues, such as the construction and mounting of extended large structures, discussed here using the Mir space station as a case study. Another consideration is the manufacture of permanent joins by welding and brazing, as well as the application of various coatings by thermal evaporation. Astrophysicists, engineers and applied mathematicians will benefit from this volume.

The goals of the 10th International Space Conference on “Protection of Materials and Structures from Space Environment” ICPMSE-10J, since its inception in 1992, have been to facilitate exchanges between members of the various engineering and science disciplines involved in the development of space materials, including aspects of LEO, GEO and Deep Space environments, ground-based qualification, and in-flight experiments and lessons learned from operational vehicles that are closely interrelated to disciplines of the atmospheric sciences, solar-terrestrial interactions and space life sciences. The knowledge of environmental conditions on and around the Moon, Mars, Venus and the low Earth orbit as well as other possible candidates for landing such as asteroids have become an important issue, and protecting both hardware and human life from the effects of space environments has taken on a new meaning in light of the increased interest in space travel and colonization of other planets. And while many material experiments have been carried out on the ground and in open space in the last 50 years (LDEF, MEEP, SARE, MISSE, AOP, DSPSE, ESEM, EURECA, HST, MDIM, MIS, MPID, MPAC and SEED), many questions regarding the environmental impact of space on materials remain either poorly understood or unanswered. The coming generations of scientists will have to continue this work and tackle new challenges, continuing to build the level of confidence humans will need to continue the colonization of space. It is hoped that the proceedings of the ICPMSE-10J presented in this book will constitute a small contribution to doing so.

This publication presents the proceedings of ICPMSE-6, the sixth international conference on Protection of Materials and Structures from Space Environment, held in Toronto May 1-3, 2002. The ICPMSE series of meetings became an important part of the LEO space community since it was started in 1991. Since then, the meeting has grown steadily, attracting a large number of engineers, researchers, managers, and scientists from industrial companies, scientific institutions and government agencies in Canada, U. S. A. , Asia, and Europe, thus becoming a true international event. This year’s meeting is gaining even stronger importance with the resumption of the ISS and other space projects in LEO, GEO and Deep Space. To reflect on these activities, the topics in the program have been extended to include protection of materials in GEO and Deep Space. The combination of a broad selection of technical and scientific topics addressed by internationally known speakers with the charm of Toronto and the hospitality of the organizers brings participants back year after year. The conference was hosted and organized by Integrity Testing Laboratory Inc. (ITL), and held at the University of Toronto’s Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS). The meeting was sponsored by the Materials and Manufacturing Ontario (MMO) and the CRESTech, two Ontario Centres of Excellence; Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR/NL); MD Robotics; EMS Technologies; The Integrity Testing Laboratory (ITL); and the UTIAS.

The effects of various space environment factors like atomic oxygen, vacuum ultraviolet radiation, charging, micrometeoroids, meteoroid showers, etc. on materials and structures in various orbits are discussed. In addition the ways to prevent these effects or reduce them through protection by coatings or modification of affected surfaces are considered in the book. The discussions on development of predictive models of material erosion that will allow the materials engineers and designers of future spacecraft to evaluate materials' behaviour is continued from the past meetings.

Historically, the United States has been a world leader in aerospace endeavors in both the government and commercial sectors. A key factor in aerospace leadership is continuous development of advanced technology, which is critical to U.S. ambitions in space, including a human mission to Mars. To continue to achieve progress, NASA is currently executing a series of aeronautics and space technology programs using a roadmapping process to identify technology needs and improve the management of its technology development portfolio. NASA created a set of 14 draft technology roadmaps in 2010 to guide the development of space technologies. In 2015, NASA issued a revised set of roadmaps. A significant new aspect of the update has been the effort to assess the relevance of the technologies by listing the enabling and enhancing technologies for specific design reference missions (DRMs) from the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate and the Science Mission Directorate. NASA Space Technology Roadmaps and Priorities Revisited prioritizes new technologies in the 2015 roadmaps and recommends a methodology for conducting independent reviews of future updates to NASA's space technology roadmaps, which are expected to occur every 4 years.