Coatings for Space Technology

In space technology Au-coatings are used as thermal-control coatings. For such application complex 3-dimensional shapes can be coated, which are suspended on an axis of rotation and whose dimensions are limited by a cube with an edge length of 40 cm.

We also perform high-purity, maximum density coatings for spacecraft measuring instruments with materials such as Au, Ir or Ru.

One example is the coating of the target disc of the Destiny Dust Analyzer (DDA) of the DESTINY+ mission.

DESTINY+ (Demonstration and Experiment of Space Technology for INterplanetary voYage Phaethon fLyby dUSt science) is a space mission scheduled for launch at the end of 2025 and is being carried out by the Japanese space agency JAXA together with the German space agency DLR.

The aim of this mission is to test a new ion propulsion system in interplanetary space.

At the same time, cosmic dust, which originates from the Geminid meteor shower will be investigated. For these investigations, the on board DDA instrument built by the University of Stuttgart will be used.

The heart of the Destiny Dust Analyzer is a gold-coated target disc with a diameter of around 30 cm. Cosmic dust is broken down into its components when it hits this target disk and then be examined with a mass spectrometer.

The disc is coated with a 25 μm thick layer of high-purity gold (99.999% purity). This thickness is necessary so that the colliding particles with a penetration depth of up to 20 μm remain completely stuck in the gold layer, do not penetrate into the base material of the target disk and the subsequent measurement is not contaminated with scattering particles from the disk itself.

The high purity ensures that there are no impurities in the gold layer itself that could falsify the measurements.

Using special sputtering processes, MagTec deposited the required gold layer with an outstanding density of 98.5 % of the literature density of gold on the target plate. This exceeded the requirements set for the best possible function of the DDA instrument.

We would like to thank DLR, the Institute of Space Systems at the University of Stuttgart and the company RIGO GmbH in particular for their many years of cooperation on this project, from initial planning to final successful implementation.

We are very excited to see the results of DESTINY+ in a few years!