Photolysis of spacecraft contaminants

A molecular beam facility, which was designed to measure photochemical cross-sections, has been constructed at the Athens College science facility. The integration of this vacuum system into an operational photochemical instrument was performed with signal processing consisting of both dc and ac techniques. Of the experiments performed to date on the vacuum ultraviolet photolysis of water vapor, it is apparent that a larger pumping capacity (preferably with differential pumping) is required to improve upon the background signal. Both phase-sensitive detection and ion-counting techniques are recommended for future studies.