Abstract: NASA has expressed a need for measurement of particulate contamination in space environments. The space environment of interest is a vacuum under microgravity conditions. Conventional particulate measurement systems detect particles suspended in a gas or fluid that are drawn through a cell where the forward scatter is measured. For obvious reasons this will not work in space. The Space Particulate Imaging Measurement System (SPIMS) is capable of detection and sizing of particles passing through a detection zone that is outside the detection system hardware. The particle detection is accomplished through the digital measurement of the shadow width of a laser source. One of the sterling features of this research was the early decision to engineer the system as a space experiment. As a result, the design is fully automated, solar blind, uses a robust digital detection scheme, is small, light weight and uses minimal power.!2
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