Spacecraft & Launch Vehicle Materials

ASTM E595 measures a material sample's total mass loss (TML) and collected volatile condensable materials (CVCM) in vacuum at elevated temperature, the screening numbers space programs use to keep condensable films off optics and cold surfaces. On this page's families, E595 screening is reported on the SOLIMIDE AC-series TDS, on several PORON grades' TDS (4701-50, 4701-60, AquaPro 37), on the SSP2390 and Low Outgassing solid silicones, and on selected Sil-Pad / Gap Pad grades (TSP K1300, TSP 1600S, TSP 3500, TGP 3000).

The discipline this page holds to: values are quoted from the grade's TDS on file, never paraphrased from a webpage, and screening status is confirmed per grade, not per family, because it varies within a product line.

Programs commonly cross-check candidates against the public NASA outgassing database before committing to test. [1] [2]

Flexible aerogel blanket is the converted-material answer: Cryogel Z is engineered for sub-ambient and cryogenic service, with thermal conductivity per ASTM C177 and blanket flexibility per ASTM C1101 on its TDS. H-O die-cuts it into feedline wraps, valve-body lay-ins, clamp saddles, and tank-adjacent panels, kitted to your line isometrics so the wrap preserves its loft at fittings and supports, the places naive lagging fails.

Oxygen and propellant compatibility is a program-level review against the actual service fluid. This page makes no compatibility claims beyond the TDS, and thermal-cycling behavior between fill and drain is framed qualitatively. [9]

H-O converts the layers; your blanket shop builds the blanket. That split matters: multilayer insulation performance, effective emittance, grounding, closeout design, belongs to the thermal team and the integrator, while the layers themselves are precision converted parts: Kapton HN or Apical NP film die-cut to layer patterns, perforated to your venting spec's open area, FEP-faced Kapton FN for heat-tacked joints, and AeroZero thin film where grams matter, all kitted in lay-up order with lot-code traceability.

Dimensional fidelity layer to layer is what keeps a 20-layer stack assemblable, and that is the converter's job. Film data is per the makers' TDS. [11]

Entirely by conduction and radiation: every watt conducts from the die through a spreader, a joint, and a deck to a radiator panel that radiates it to space. The converted parts in that chain are the spreader (flexible graphite, whose in-plane conductivity flattens hot spots at minimal mass) and the joint interface (HiTherm graphite where electrical conduction is acceptable, Sil-Pad class insulators where the device must float electrically), compared per ASTM D5470 at the working pressure.

Because the bay may be sealed or share volume with optics, interface materials are also screened candidates: prefer grades with E595 documentation when the design calls for it. [5]

Same aerogel family, opposite ends of the stage. Cryogel Z is the sub-ambient and cryogenic blanket: feedlines, tank-adjacent panels, umbilical areas, anywhere the job is keeping heat out of cold structure and ice off it. Pyrogel XTE is the high-temperature sibling: engine-adjacent structure, hot duct runs, and the warm side of separation planes. Each carries its own band per the maker's designations and its own ASTM C177 thermal data, and neither substitutes for the other.

ArmaGel DT / HT serve the same physics in industrial format for pad and facility cryo lines. Specify by the face's band from the TDS, not by "aerogel" generically. [9]

By venting deliberately. Ascent takes ambient pressure to near-vacuum in minutes. A sealed box either equalizes through a designed path or carries the pressure differential as structural load. The converted answer is an ePTFE membrane vent over a port: gas-permeable so the volume breathes, liquid- and particulate-blocking so the box stays clean, with airflow and water-entry classes per the membrane TDS.

MLI stacks get the same treatment through die-cut perforation patterns at the open-area your blanket spec defines. The design rule: walk the unit, list every sealed volume, and record one venting decision per volume on a signed drawing. [12]

Grades whose TDS reports ASTM E595 screening, confirmed grade by grade. On this page, the PORON 4701-50 firm and 4701-60 very-firm grades report TML 0.6–0.8% and CVCM 0.02–0.06% on the Rogers TDS (ASTM E595-93), with foam mechanicals per ASTM D3574; the softer 4701-30 and 4790-92 grades are also screened but their reported values sit at or above the 0.10% CVCM limit, so they are not the starting point for an optics-adjacent bay. The SOLIMIDE AC-series insulation reports screening as well. The failure this prevents is slow and invisible: condensables migrating to the coldest optical surface over weeks of vacuum exposure.

Keep the TDS-reported values in the design record, and where a mechanically ideal grade lacks screening, either test it under your program's process or substitute a screened grade. Do not assume family-level equivalence. [8]

Qualitatively at selection, quantitatively in your test program. Eclipse-season cycling, fill-and-drain cycles, and ascent transients stress joints through expansion mismatch and stiffness change at temperature extremes. At selection, the levers are qualitative and documented: choose families whose service bands (per the makers' TDS designations) bracket the duty with margin, prefer compliant interfaces that absorb expansion mismatch, and avoid stretching one material across faces with very different bands.

This page deliberately quotes no cycle-count or rate numbers: cycling endurance is configuration-dependent and belongs to your thermal-vac and qualification testing, where the actual stack, in the actual geometry, earns its data.

No, and a converter should not claim otherwise. Flight certification, materials-and-processes approval, and qualification belong to your program: they attach to a configuration tested under your authority, not to sheet stock or die-cut parts. What H-O owns and stands behind is the converting layer: dimensional conformance to drawing, material traceability to the roll and lot, lot-code TDS records, certificates of conformance to the purchase order, and an ISO 9001:2015 certified quality management system around all of it.

That clean boundary is what makes the paperwork auditable on both sides: your program qualifies the design; H-O documents the parts.

Yes, and it is often the same families one documentation level down: ArmaGel industrial aerogel on facility cryo lines, PTFE-coated fiberglass release surfaces on bonding benches, protective films on finished surfaces during processing, and red-tag covers and closeout parts cut from the same stock as flight hardware.

The practical advantage of one converter across both is configuration discipline: the GSE part and the flight part are cut from documented, traceable material with the same drawing conventions, so nothing ambiguous walks onto the integration floor.

The dedicated ground support, manufacturing & MRO page covers the consumable side in depth.

The drawing (DXF, STEP, or PDF) or line isometrics for wrap kits, plus the duty context: temperature band and whether exposure is continuous or transient, outgassing documentation requirement (E595 screening on TDS, program M&P list), venting needs for sealed volumes, mass budget if tight, and the records that must travel with the parts (lot-code TDS, CoC, traceability level, cleanroom kitting and bagging). Every part is made to order.

Sample and production lead times are listed in the process strip above and confirmed with your quote through the form below.

Because layer-to-layer dimensional fidelity and traceability are exactly the things a shop optimized for integration should not burn its schedule on. A 20-layer stack with hand-cut layers accumulates error that shows up as wrinkles, shorted layers, and rework at the table. Die-cut layers arrive identical, perforated to spec, kitted in order, and traceable to lot. The same logic covers aerogel wrap kits cut to isometrics and cushioning pad sets kiss-cut on liner.

Converting is also where mass strategy is cheapest: discrete pads instead of blankets, perforation that does double duty, and nesting that cuts scrap. Send the lay-up or isometrics and engineering will quote the kit as a kit.

Both come from the same ASTM E595 run but answer different questions. TML, total mass loss, is everything the sample gives up in vacuum at the test temperature: solvents, water, low-molecular-weight species. CVCM, collected volatile condensable materials, is the fraction that recondenses on a cooler collector plate, the number that predicts films on optics and cold radiators.

A material can post a modest TML with most of it being water (often reported separately as WVR) and still be benign, or post a low TML whose condensable fraction is exactly what your telescope cannot tolerate.

Read both numbers from the grade's TDS, and let your program's M&P thresholds, not a rule of thumb, make the call. [1]

Achievable tolerance depends on the material class, the thickness, and the part geometry, so H-O confirms tolerances at drawing review rather than quoting one blanket number. Send the drawing with datums and the critical dimensions flagged. Engineering reviews the material's compressibility and the cut method, then returns the tolerance set the part can actually hold in production.

Parts ship against the vendor technical data sheet for the specified grade, with lot-level traceability through H-O's ISO 9001:2015 quality system. Property values on this page are reference ranges; the grade TDS on the order governs. Certificates of conformance are available on request.