Talk:Corrosion in space

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Usually moving parts on spacecrafts are protected and as such not affected atomic oxygen. The atomic oxygen flux to interiour parts of a spacecreaft is very low and the initial 5 eV energy of the atomic oxygen is lost due to scattering. The materials affected most are those in the ram direction. They see the maximum flux.
Indeed different materials resist corrosion in space differently. It is, however, not aluminium that is to worry about. Interesting enough it is silver that is the most vulnerable metal in low earth orbit and copper to a much lesser extend. Silver oxidises so fast that it is forbidden to use at the outside of spacecrafts in low earth orbit. Silver was used in the past as interconnectors on solar arrays. It is now replaced by molybdenum (silver plated) or gold.
There are more materials which are affected in such a way that they not used anymore at the outside of low earth orbit spacecrafts. One of the materails, which used as a reference in ground testing, while it erodes very fast, is kapton.
--Tderooij 16:20, 8 June 2007 (UTC)