Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Vacuum chamber”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 253 records · Page 14
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2005

Radio-Frequency Plasma Cleaning of a Penning Malmberg Trap

Radio-frequency-generated plasma has been demonstrated to be a promising means of cleaning the interior surfaces of a Penning-Malmberg trap that is used in experiments on the confinement of antimatter. {Such a trap was reported in Modified Penning-Malmberg Trap for Storing Antiprotons (MFS-31780), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 29, No. 3 (March 2005), page 66.} Cleaning of the interior surfaces is necessary to minimize numbers of contaminant atoms and molecules, which reduce confinement times by engaging in matter/antimatter-annihilation reactions with confined antimatter particles. A modified Penning-Malmberg trap like the one described in the cited prior article includes several collinear ring electrodes (some of which are segmented) inside a tubular vacuum chamber, as illustrated in Figure 1. During operation of the trap, a small cloud of charged antiparticles (e.g., antiprotons or positrons) is confined to a spheroidal central region by means of a magnetic field in combination with DC and radiofrequency (RF) electric fields applied via the electrodes. In the present developmental method of cleaning by use of RF-generated plasma, one evacuates the vacuum chamber, backfills the chamber with hydrogen at a suitable low pressure, and uses an RF-signal generator and baluns to apply RF voltages to the ring electrodes. Each ring is excited in the polarity opposite that of the adjacent ring. The electric field generated by the RF signal creates a discharge in the low-pressure gas. The RF power and gas pressure are adjusted so that the plasma generated in the discharge (see Figure 2) physically and chemically attacks any solid, liquid, and gaseous contaminant layers on the electrode surfaces. The products of the physical and chemical cleaning reactions are gaseous and are removed by the vacuum pumps.

Sims, William Herbert, III↗
DOE OSTI2023

ESR Dipole Power Supply Current Ripple and Noise Specifications

This note presents key findings for the ESR main magnet dipole power supplies (PS), where we find the current ripple specification to be close to or beyond the state-of-the-art. These specifications originate from beam-beam considerations, with the requirement to limit the ripple-induced hadron emittance growth to below 10%/hour. Beam dynamics that drive this PS ripple specification arise from the beam motions at the Interaction Point (IP). The frequency of the motions can be separated into "low", compared to the betatron frequency, and "high", i.e. around the betatron frequency and harmonics. In terms of the driving frequency, "low" implies ƒ<<ƒ 0 v x,y and "fast" means ƒ≈{ƒ 0 v x,y , ƒ 0 (1- v x,y , etc.}, where ƒ 0 =1/ T 0 =78.2 kHz is the revolution frequency, and v x,y are the fractional parts of the betatron tunes. Frequencies higher than ƒ 0 /2 will be folded back due to the particles sampling the field once per turn. To provide flexibility for future lattice adjustments and working point variations, we do not consider the tunes as fixed. Instead, we assume a certain margin and allow them to potentially fall within the range of 0.1< v x,y <0.5. In other words, the high-frequency region spans approximately from 8kHz to 40 kHz. Consequently,, we definte the dipole PS ripple in two distinct frequency ranges: the low-frequency range of [1-8000] Hz and the high-frequency range of [8-40] kHz. For the physics effects we analyzed in this note, there is no distinction between the ripple (which can be approximately reproduced in the frequency domain) and the random noise if both have some power within the frequency bandwidth of interest. Therefore, while we will use the term "ripple" for short, it should always be understood that we are referring to "ripple plus noise." Except for the lower end of the low-frequency range, the impact of the rippling PS current on the beam will be considerably reduced due to the eddy currents induced in the walls of the vacuum chamber. We will account for this effect in the PS ripple specifications to follow. The remaining sections of this note are structure as follows: Section II outlines the beam-beam physics requirements for the positional stability of the beam at the IP. Section III describes the anticipated shielding effect of the eddy currents induced in the vacuum chamber. Section IV derives the ripple requirement for the low-frequency range by propagating the closed orbit ripple resulting from the rippling dipoles to the IP (relevant lattice simulation results are summarized in the Appendix). In Section V, we present the analytical criterion for the ripple in the high-frequency range by considering resonant oscillations of the electron beam around a stable closed orbit near the betatron frequency. Finally, Section VI provides a summary of our findings and discusses related work.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
NASA NTRS2008

James Webb Space Telescope: Frequently Asked Questions for Scientists and Engineers

JWST will be tested incrementally during its construction, starting with individual mirrors and instruments (including cameras and spectrometers) and building up to the full observatory. JWST's mirrors and the telescope structure are first each tested individually, including optical testing of the mirrors and alignment testing of the structure inside a cold thermal-vacuum chamber. The mirrors are then installed on the telescope structure in a clean room at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). In parallel to the telescope assembly and alignment, the instruments are being built and tested, again first individually, and then as part of an integrated instrument assembly. The integrated instrument assembly will be tested in a thermal-vacuum chamber at GSFC using an optical simulator of the telescope. This testing makes sure the instruments are properly aligned relative to each other and also provides an independent check of the individual tests. After both the telescope and the integrated instrument module are successfully assembled, the integrated instrument module will be installed onto the telescope, and the combined system will be sent to Johnson Space Flight Center (JSC) where it will be optically tested in one of the JSC chambers. The process includes testing the 18 primary mirror segments acting as a single primary mirror, and testing the end-to-end system. The final system test will assure that the combined telescope and instruments are focused and aligned properly, and that the alignment, once in space, will be within the range of the actively controlled optics. In general, the individual optical tests of instruments and mirrors are the most accurate. The final system tests provide a cost-effective check that no major problem has occurred during assembly. In addition, independent optical checks of earlier tests will be made as the full system is assembled, providing confidence that there are no major problems.

Gardner, Jonathan P.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Coherent wiggler radiation impedance at the storage ring cooler for the EIC project

The Electron Ion Collider project is presently under design at Brookhaven National Laboratory. One of the options how to achieve an electron-proton high-luminosity of 10 34 cm –2 s –1 range, is the storage ring cooler concept, which is based on employing a significant amount of the damping wigglers. One of the main concerns, in achieving the required beam parameters, is the collective effects, especially the coherent synchrotron radiation impedance produced by the damping wigglers and its effect on the longitudinal beam dynamics. Low energy of the electrons, E o =149.6 MeV, small vacuum chamber aperture, b=15 mm, small bending radius and a big number of poles make the coherent synchrotron radiation simulations for the damping wiggler with D. Zhou’s CSRZ code, pretty challenging. The obtained numerical results have been compare with a theoretical approach of Stupakov and Zhou. The strong narrow-band impedance, due to a presence of the periodic poles and the vacuum chamber, have been identified and classified. To suppress or detune the high-Q resonance peaks, a design of the damping wiggler with a varied period of length is presented and discussed.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
NASA NTRS2005

Combined Silicon and Gallium Arsenide Solar Cell UV Testing

The near and long-term effect of UV on silicon solar cells is relatively understood. In an effort to learn more about the effects of UV radiation on the performance of GaAs/Ge solar cells, silicon and gallium arsenide on germanium (GaAs/Ge) solar cells were placed in a vacuum chamber and irradiated with ultraviolet light by a Spectrolab XT 10 solar simulator. Seventeen GaAs/Ge and 8 silicon solar cells were mounted on an 8 inch copper block. By having all the cells on the same test plate we were able to do direct comparison of silicon and GaAs/Ge solar cell degradation. The test article was attached to a cold plate in the vacuum chamber to maintain the cells at 25 degrees Celsius. A silicon solar cell standard was used to measure beam uniformity and any degradation of the ST-10 beam. The solar cell coverings tested included cells with AR-0213 coverglass, fused silica coverglass, BRR-0213 coverglass and cells without coverglass. Of interest in the test is the BRR-0213 coverglass material manufactured by OCLI. It has an added Infrared rejection coating to help reduce the solar cell operating temperature. This coverglass is relatively new and of interest to several current and future programs at Marshall. Due to moves of the laboratory equipment and location only 350 hours of UV degradation have been completed. During this testing a significant leveling off in the rate of degradation was reached. Data from the test and comparisons of the UV effect of the bare cells and cells with coverglass material will be presented.

Willowby, Douglas↗
NASA NTRS2004

Mars Exploration Rover thermal test program overview

In January 2004, two Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) landed on the surface of Mars to begin their mission as robotic geologists. A year prior to these historic landings, both rovers and the spacecraft that delivered them to Mars, were completing a series of environmental tests in facilities at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This paper describes the test program undertaken to validate the thermal design and verify the workmanship integrity of both rovers and the spacecraft. The spacecraft, which contained the rover within the aeroshell, were tested in a 7.5 m diameter thermal vacuum chamber. Thermal balance was performed for the near earth (hot case) condition and for the near Mars (cold case) condition. A solar simulator was used to provide the solar boundary condition on the solar array. IR lamps were used to simulate the solar heat load on the aeroshell for the off-sun attitudes experienced by the spacecraft during its cruise to Mars. Each rover was tested separately in a 3.0 m diameter thermal vacuum chamber over conditions simulating the warmest and coldest expected Mars diurnal temperature cycles. The environmental tests were conducted in a quiescent nitrogen atmosphere at a pressure of 8 to 10 Torr. In addition to thermal balance testing, the science instruments on board the rovers were tested successfully in the extreme environmental conditions anticipated for the mission. A solar simulator was not used in these tests.

thermal vacuum test↗
NASA NTRS1985

Microwave blackbodies for spaceborne receivers

The properties of microwave blackbody targets are explained as they apply to the calibration of spaceborne receivers. Also described are several practicable, blackbody targets used to test and calibrate receivers in the laboratory and in the thermal vacuum chamber. Problems with the precision and the accuracy of blackbody targets, and blackbody target design concepts that overcome some of the accuracy limitations present in existing target designs, are presented. The principle of the Brewster angle blackbody target is described where the blackbody is applied as a fixed-temperature test target in the laboratory and as a variable-temperature target in the thermal vacuum chamber. The reflectivity of a Brewster angle target is measured in the laboratory. From this measurement, the emissivity of the target is calculated. Radiatively cooled thermal suspensions are discussed as the coolants of blackbody targets and waveguide terminations that function as calibration devices in spaceborne receivers. Examples are given for the design of radiatively cooled thermal suspensions. Corrugated-horn antennas used to observe the cosmic background and to provide a cold-calibration source for spaceborne receivers are described.

Stacey, J. M.↗
NASA NTRS2018

A Low Cost Thermal Control Method for Testing in a Mars Environment

Due to the unique thermal vacuum testing requirements for a Mars Rover instrument, NASA Goddard developed a low cost, high fidelity thermal control system utilizing Thermal Electric Coolers (TECs) combined with a heat rejection fluid loop to actively control 8 independent payload thermal boundary zones in a simulated Mars pressure vacuum chamber with a Carbon Dioxide atmosphere. These zones could control instrument components to a specific temperature as a function of time to simulate exact temporal flight boundary predictions.The Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer (MOMA) instrument is a dual source (pyrolysis gas chromatograph and laser desorption) mass spectrometer (MS) based package that detects and characterizes organic molecules, as part of ESA's 2020 ExoMars Rover mission to seek the signs of life on Mars.Due to the unique thermal vacuum testing requirements for a Mars Rover instrument, NASA Goddard developed a low cost, high fidelity thermal control system utilizing Thermal Electric Coolers (TECs) combined with a heat rejection fluid loop to actively control 8 independent payload thermal boundary zones in a simulated Mars pressure vacuum chamber with a Carbon Dioxide atmosphere. These zones could control instrument components to a specific temperature as a function of time to simulate exact temporal flight boundary predictions.The Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer (MOMA) instrument is a dual source (pyrolysis gas chromatograph and laser desorption) mass spectrometer (MS) based package that detects and characterizes organic molecules, as part of ESA's 2020 ExoMars Rover mission to seek the signs of life on Mars.

MOMA↗
NASA NTRS2016

Space Suit Portable Life Support System (PLSS) 2.0 Unmanned Vacuum Environment Testing

For the first time in more than 30 years, an advanced space suit Portable Life Support System (PLSS) design was operated inside a vacuum chamber representative of the flight operating environment. The test article, PLSS 2.0, was the second system-level integrated prototype of the advanced PLSS design, following the PLSS 1.0 Breadboard that was developed and tested throughout 2011. Whereas PLSS 1.0 included five technology development components with the balance the system simulated using commercial-off-the-shelf items, PLSS 2.0 featured first generation or later prototypes for all components less instrumentation, tubing and fittings. Developed throughout 2012, PLSS 2.0 was the first attempt to package the system into a flight-like representative volume. PLSS 2.0 testing included an extensive functional evaluation known as Pre-Installation Acceptance (PIA) testing, Human-in-the-Loop testing in which the PLSS 2.0 prototype was integrated via umbilicals to a manned prototype space suit for 19 two-hour simulated EVAs, and unmanned vacuum environment testing. Unmanned vacuum environment testing took place from 1/9/15-7/9/15 with PLSS 2.0 located inside a vacuum chamber. Test sequences included performance mapping of several components, carbon dioxide removal evaluations at simulated intravehicular activity (IVA) conditions, a regulator pressure schedule assessment, and culminated with 25 simulated extravehicular activities (EVAs). During the unmanned vacuum environment test series, PLSS 2.0 accumulated 378 hours of integrated testing including 291 hours of operation in a vacuum environment and 199 hours of simulated EVA time. The PLSS prototype performed nominally throughout the test series, with two notable exceptions including a pump failure and a Spacesuit Water Membrane Evaporator (SWME) leak, for which post-test failure investigations were performed. In addition to generating an extensive database of PLSS 2.0 performance data, achievements included requirements and operational concepts verification, as well as demonstration of vehicular interfaces, consumables sizing and recharge, and water quality control.

Watts, Carly↗
DOE OSTI2024

Design of the Electromagnetic Particle Injector (EPI) for Tokamak Deployment

Both predicting and controlling disruptions are critical and urgent issues for ITER as some disruptions with a short warning time may be unavoidable. For these cases, a rapid response disruption mitigation system (DMS) referred to as the electromagnetic particle injector (EPI) is being developed. The primary advantages of the EPI are its fast response time and high velocity, which have been demonstrated in offline experiments (Raman et al., 2021). The EPI is capable of accelerating a metallic sabot electromagnetically using a rail gun to the required velocities ( > 2 km/s) within 2 ms. Two high-field racetrack magnets able to generate fields over 2 T are positioned above and below the rails to permit high velocity at low rail currents, a requirement to minimize electrode erosion. At the end of the acceleration phase, a sabot capture mechanism retains the spent sabot inside the vacuum chamber that houses the EPI. At this point, it releases well-defined microspheres, or a shell pellet, of a radiative payload into the disrupting plasma. A remotely operated sabot loading system positioned behind the injector contains several pre-equipped sabots that can be loaded by an operator from the tokamak control room. The injector is interfaced to the tokamak through a guide tube attached to the front of the EPI vacuum chamber. Finally, the advantages of the EPI system over other DMSs under consideration are described in conjunction with the details of an EPI system designed for near-term test on an existing large tokamak.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
NASA NTRS1990

Special requirements in the design of a sensor test and integration laboratory

Special needs are imposed on the design and operation of a sensor test and integration lab. Cryogenic temperature, vibration isolation for electro-optical equipment, contamination control, thermal control to reduce or minimize thermally induced stresses on mirrors and supporting metering structure, thermal vacuum chamber shroud temperature uniformity, and varying temperature control capability to bring optical equipment from cryogenic temperature to ambient environment, and real time processing are some of the stringent needs that must be addressed before a facility can be accepted to perform sensor test and integration. Most of the sensor tests are performed at cryogenic temperature, and thermal isolation of the test article from the ambient temperature is a strong consideration for the thermal vacuum chamber design. Also, equipment heat and parasitic heat sources must be able to be removed from the chamber without exceeding the chamber shroud temperature gradients. How these needs were met in the design, build, and acceptance test of the Grumman Sensor Test and Integration Lab (STIL) is described.

Bellanca, S.↗
NASA NTRS1996

Test Outline for Flutter Analysis of Rectangular Panels in Rarefied Flow Conditions

Jet plume impingement forces acting on large flexible space structures may precipitate dynamically unstable behavior during space flights. Typical operating conditions in space involve rarefied gas flow regimes which are intrinsically distinct from continuum gas flow and are normally modeled using the kinetic theory of gas flow. Docking and undocking operations of the Space Shuttle with the Russian Mir space laboratory represent a scenario in which the stability boundaries of solar panels may be of interest. Extensive literature review of research work on the dynamic stability of rectangular panels in rarefied gas flow conditions indicated the lack of published reports dealing with this phenomenon. A recently completed preliminary study for NASA JSC dealing with the mathematical analysis of the stability of two-degree-of-freedom elastically supported rigid panels under the effect of rarefied gas flow was reviewed. A test plan outline is prepared for the purpose of conducting a series of experiments on four rectangular rigid test articles in a vacuum chamber under the effect of continuous and pulsating Nitrogen jet plumes. The purpose of the test plan is to gather enough data related to a number of key parameters to allow the validation of the two-degree-of-freedom mathematical model. The hardware required careful design to select a very lightweight material while satisfying rigidity and frequency requirements within the constraints of the test environment. The data to be obtained from the vacuum chamber tests can be compared with the predicted behavior of the theoretical two-degree-of-freedom model. Using the data obtained in this study, further research can identify the limitations of the mathematical model. In addition modifications to the mathematical model can be made, if warranted, to accurately predict the behavior of rigid panels under rarefied gas flow regimes.

Akl, Fred A.↗
NASA NTRS2019

The World Is Not Enough (WINE) - Space Mining Robot with Steam Propulsion

The World Is Not Enough (WINE) is a concept for a new generation of spacecraft that takes advantage of In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) to explore space. WINE mines to extract water from planetary regolith, capturing the water as ice in a cold trap and heating it to create steam for propulsion. By propulsively "hopping" from location to location, WINE can explore Solar System bodies as well as individual bodies (e.g. WINE could cover much greater distances on Europa or the Moon than a rover, and can reach otherwise inaccessible regions). And by refueling itself as it goes, WINE's range is not limited by consumables. This makes WINE particularly well suited to prospecting and reconnaissance missions. A prototype of WINE was designed, fabricated and tested in a large vacuum chamber. The vehicle was used to demonstrate several of the primary operations that would be required of the WINE spacecraft including: mining and heating regolith to extract water; capturing water as ice in a cold trap; reorienting the vehicle to allow for further mining; pushing captured water into a propulsion tank; and heating propellant to create steam for thrust. All systems demonstrated are fully functional. All tests are conducted with regolith simulant in a vacuum chamber.

Propulsion↗
NASA NTRS2015

The NASA MSFC Electrostatic Levitation (ESL) Laboratory: Summary of Capabilities, Recent Upgrades, and Future Work

The NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) electrostatic levitation (ESL) laboratory has a long history of providing materials research and thermophysical property data. A summary of the labs capabilities, recent upgrades, and ongoing and future work will be provided. The laboratory has recently added two new capabilities to its main levitation chamber: a rapid quench system and an oxygen control system. The rapid quench system allows samples to be dropped into a quench vessel that can be filled with a low melting point material, such as a gallium or indium alloy. Thereby allowing rapid quenching of undercooled liquid metals. The oxygen control system consists of an oxygen sensor, oxygen pump, and a control unit. The sensor is a potentiometric device that determines the difference in oxygen activity between two gas compartments separated by an electrolyte, which is yttria-stabilized zirconia. The pump utilizes coulometric titration to either add or remove oxygen. The system is controlled by a desktop control unit, which can also be accessed via a computer. This system allows the oxygen partial pressure within the vacuum chamber to be measured and controlled, theoretically in the range from 10-36 to 100 bar. The ESL laboratory also has an emissometer, called the High-Temperature Emissivity Measurement System (HiTEMS). This system measures the spectral emissivity of materials from 600degC to 3,000degC. The system consists of a vacuum chamber, a black body source, and a Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometer (FTIR). The system utilizes optics to swap the signal between the sample and the black body. The system was originally designed to measure the hemispherical spectral emissivity of levitated samples, which are typically 2.5mm spheres. Levitation allows emissivity measurements of molten samples, but more work is required to develop this capability. The system is currently setup measure the near-normal spectral emissivity of stationary samples, which has been used to take measurements of ablative materials, rocket nozzle coating materials, and materials for spacecraft instruments.

SanSoucie, Michael P.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Slat Heater Boxes for Thermal Vacuum Testing

Slat heater boxes have been invented for controlling the sink temperatures of objects under test in a thermal vacuum chamber, the walls of which are cooled to the temperature of liquid nitrogen. A slat heater box (see Figure 1) includes a framework of struts that support electrically heated slats that are coated with a high-emissivity optically gray paint. The slats can be grouped together into heater zones for the purpose of maintaining an even temperature within each side. The sink temperature of an object under test is defined as the steady-state temperature of the object in the vacuum/ radiative environment during the absence of any internal heat source or sink. The slat heater box makes it possible to closely control the radiation environment to obtain a desired sink temperature. The slat heater box is placed inside the cold thermal vacuum chamber, and the object under test is placed inside (but not in contact with) the slat heater box. The slat heaters occupy about a third of the field of view from any point on the surface of the object under test, the remainder of the field of view being occupied by the cold chamber wall. Thus, the radiation environment is established by the combined effects of the slat heater box and the cold chamber wall. Given (1) the temperature of the chamber wall, (2) the fractions of the field of view occupied by the chamber wall and the slat heater box, and (3) the emissivities of the slats, chamber wall, and the surface of object under test, the slat temperature required to maintain a desired sink temperature can be calculated by solving the equations of gray-body radiation for the steady-state adiabatic case (equal absorption and emission by the object under test). Slat heater boxes offer an important advantage over the infrared lamps that have been previously used to obtain desired sink temperatures: In comparison with an infrared lamp, a slat heater box provides a greater degree of sink temperature uniformity for a test-object surface that includes multiple areas with differing optical properties.

Ungar, Eugene↗
DOE OSTI2022

Thermal analysis of RHIC arc dipole magnet cold mass with EIC beam screen

The existing RHIC storage rings – including their superconducting magnet arcs – will be used for the hadron storage ring of the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC). The vacuum chamber of these magnets was not designed for the EIC hadron beams, with shorter bunches and of higher average current than the RHIC beams. With the current stainless steel beam pipe, the resistive-wall (RW) heating will exceed the dynamic heat load budget. Limiting the RW heating is important to prevent the superconducting magnets from quenching and to maintain a low screen temperature necessary to impede the rise of RW heating (higher resistance at higher temperature) as well as to achieve desired ultra-high vacuum. In addition, simulations predict the formation of electron cloud which would further contribute to the dynamic heat load and could compromise the quality and stability of the beam. To reduce the resistive-wall heating and suppress electron cloud, a beam screen will be installed in the vacuum chamber of the RHIC SC magnets. The screen will have a high RRR copper layer at its inner face – useful to reduce the resistive-wall impedance thanks to its high conductivity especially at cryogenic temperatures – and will be coated with a thin layer of amorphous carbon, a material with low secondary electron yield to suppress the formation of electron clouds. The baseline solution envisages a screen that will be cooled by thermal contact to the 4.55 K beam pipe. Detailed thermal analysis have been conducted in ANSYS 2020 for an arc dipole cold mass equipped with a beam screen in order to study the feasibility of a passively-cooled screen and guide its design. Temperature-dependent thermal conductivity properties of all materials in the operating (cryogenic) temperature range are considered. Suitable assumptions and simplifications are made to model the magnet coil and calculate its homogenized thermal conductivity. Sensitivity studies with respect to layer thicknesses and area of contact are carried out and results are presented.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
NASA NTRS2010

Hollow Fiber Spacesuit Water Membrane Evaporator Development and Testing for Advanced Spacesuits

The spacesuit water membrane evaporator (SWME) is being developed to perform the thermal control function for advanced spacesuits to take advantage of recent advances in micropore membrane technology in providing a robust heat-rejection device that is potentially less sensitive to contamination than is the sublimator. Principles of a sheet membrane SWME design were demonstrated using a prototypic test article that was tested in a vacuum chamber at JSC in July 1999. The Membrana Celgard X50-215 microporous hollow fiber (HoFi) membrane was selected after recent contamination tests as the most suitable candidate among commercial alternatives for HoFi SWME prototype development. A design that grouped the fiber layers into stacks, which were separated by small spaces and packaged into a cylindrical shape, was developed into a full-scale prototype consisting 14,300 tube bundled into 30 stacks, each of which are formed into a chevron shape and separated by spacers and organized into three sectors of ten nested stacks. Vacuum chamber testing has been performed characterize heat rejection as a function of inlet water temperature and water vapor backpressure and to show contamination resistance to the constituents expected to be found in potable water produced by the distillation processes. Other tests showed the tolerance to freezing and suitability to reject heat in a Mars pressure environment.

Bue, Grant C.↗
NASA NTRS2022

Environmental Testing of the OVEN System for Lunar Water Extraction and Prospecting

Introduction: The presence of water ice in permanently shadowed regions on the lunar surface [1] may enable a sustained human presence on the Moon with minimal need for consumables. However, in order to develop a long term utilization plan that includes the usage of in-situ water we must first understand the abundance, stratigraphy and distribution of this re-source. Multiple space agencies currently have plans for lunar water prospecting missions. The Optimized Volatile Extraction Node (OVEN) was designed for water prospecting missions that require samples to be weighed, sealed, and heated as the means of determining water concentration. This method of water quantification necessitates a fair amount of automation, so a rigorous environmental test program was performed in order to build confidence in the performance of the OVEN design. The work presented here describes the OVEN environmental test program as well as ongoing efforts to improve on the design. Vibration: The OVEN participated in two rounds of random vibration tests. The first test was a stand-alone test performed at the Energy Systems Test Area of the Johnson Space Center. The second test was an integrated test with the mobile platform developed for the Resource Prospector project. The OVEN survived both tests without damage, but the tests did provide valuable lessons learned with regards to specific operations. Thermal Vacuum: The OVEN was successfully demonstrated at a temperature range of -50 to 75 C in a thermal vacuum chamber. The need to heat motor gearboxes at lower temperatures was predetermined so this test program was completed by implementing a method of gearbox heating that used the existing circuitry within the motors. Dust: A custom dynamometer was built in order to determine the torque required to move the various mechanisms within the OVEN at a range of temperatures. The OVEN system was coated with lunar dust simulant in order to determine mechanism torques under a worst-case operating condition. Sublimation: Sublimation losses within the OVEN were quantified through a series of test configurations, including an integrated test in a thermal vacuum chamber at Glenn Research Center [2]. Current Work: The OVEN subsystem is currently not a component of any existing prospecting missions, but work continues that will take the lessons learned from previous environmental tests and improve on the design in order to be considered for future prospecting opportunities. References: [1] Colaprete, A., Schultz, P., Heldmann, J., Wooden, D., Shirley, M., Ennico, K., ... & Sollitt, L. (2010). Detection of water in the LCROSS ejecta plume. science, 330(6003), 463-468. [2] Kleinhenz, J., Smith, J., Roush, T., Colaprete, A., Zacny, K., Paulsen, G., ... & Paz, A. (2018). Volatiles Loss from water bearing regolith simulant at Lunar Environments. In Earth and Space 2018: Engineering for Extreme Environments (pp. 454-466). Reston, VA: American Society of Civil Engineers.

A Paz↗