Spectroscopy strategy for solid propellants quality control

In this article, we highlight generalities about solid propellants (SPs) for space launch. SP is a composition of several ingredients basically oxidizer and reducing materials in order to guarantee the combustion reaction after initialization. SPs require high level control quality analysis methods due to their energetic nature with high probability of auto-inflammation, which presents a serious safety problem, thus, the spectroscopy analysis techniques are required to promote the SPs quality control accuracy. In this article, X ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), and near infrared spectroscopy (NIRs) have been introduced as substantial analysis methods on SPs. The main parameters to be determined in the process of the quality control are the crystalline structure using XRD and molecular structure and molecular identification using FTIR. While NIRs combined with chemometrics proved to be a quick and non-destructive analysis tool, it provides concise quantitative data so it has great potential to meet the SPs control quality analysis requirements.