As space travel matures and extended duration voyages become increasingly common, it will be necessary to include arrays of early fire detection systems aboard spacefaring vessels, space habitats, and in spacesuits. As gasses that are relevant to combustion and pyrolysis have absorption features in the midinfrared range, it is possible to utilize absorption spectroscopy as a means of detecting and quantifying the concentration of these hazardous compounds. Within this work, a sensor for detecting carbon dioxide has been designed and tested autonomously on a high-altitude balloon flight. The sensor utilizes a 4.2-mm lightemitting diode source, amplitude modulation to characterize species concentrations, and frequency modulation to characterize ambient temperature. Future work will include expanding the sensor design to detect other gases, and demonstrating suborbital flight capability.

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A sensor which measures the concentrations of CO and CO 2 aboard spacecraft could be used as an early fire detection system and a vital component of primary life support systems. Herein, such a sensor is presented which utilizes non dispersive infrared spectroscopy to detect gases. Design and results from testing on a high altitude baloon flight are presented. The goal of this work is to develop the hardware so that it is a rugged and viable technology for a variety of sensor applications in a variety of environments. It is, therefore, crucial that the hardware can reject heat at low pressures, survive the low-temperature operation, have low drift (stable output), remain low power, and be insensitive to humidity.

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