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Continuous-duty hydrogen sorption cryocoolers are being developed for the European Space Agency (ESA) Planck mission. To achieve an acceptable level of performance and robust operation with these hydride refrigerators during flight, detailed investigations have been performed on the sorbent materials and on critical hardware components.
JPL is developing a continuous hydrogen sorption cryocooler for the ESA Planck mission, which will measure the anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background.
The STS-77 Space Shuttle Program Mission Report summarizes the Payload activities as well as the: Orbiter, External Tank (ET), Solid Rocket Booster (SRB), Reusable Solid Rocket Motor (RSRM), and the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) systems performance during the seventy-seventh flight of the Space Shuttle Program, the fifty-second flight since the return-to-flight, and the eleventh flight of the Orbiter Endeavour (OV-105). STS-77 was also the last flight of OV-105 prior to the vehicle being placed in the Orbiter Maintenance Down Period (OMDP). In addition to the Orbiter, the flight vehicle consisted of an ET that was designated ET-78; three SSME's that were designated as serial numbers 2037, 2040, and 2038 in positions 1, 2, and 3, respectively; and two SRB's that were designated BI-080. The RSRM's, designated RSRM-47, were installed in each SRB and the individual RSRM's were designated as 360TO47A for the left SRB, and 360TO47B for the right SRB. The STS-77 Space Shuttle Program Mission Report fulfills the Space Shuttle Program requirement as documented in NSTS 07700, Volume VII, Appendix E. The requirement stated in that document is that each organizational element supporting the Program will report the results of their hardware (and software) evaluation and mission performance plus identify all related in-flight anomalies. The primary objectives of this flight were to successfully perform the operations necessary to fulfill the requirements of Spacehab-4, the SPARTAN 207/inflatable Antenna Experiment (IAE), and the Technology Experiments Advancing Missions in Space (TEAMS) payload. Secondary objectives of this flight were to perform the experiments of the Aquatic Research Facility (ARF), Brilliant Eyes Ten-Kelvin Sorption Cryocooler Experiment (BETSCE), Biological Research in Canisters (BRIC), Get-Away-Special (GAS), and GAS Bridge Assembly (GBA). The STS-77 mission was planned as a 9-day flight plus 1 day, plus 2 contingency days, which were available for weather avoidance or Orbiter contingency operations. The sequence of events for the STS-77 mission is shown in Table 1, and the Space Shuttle Vehicle Management Office Problem Tracking List is shown in Table 11. The Government Fumished Equipment/Flight Crew Equipment (GFE/FCE) Problem Tracking List is shown in Table II. Appendix A lists the sources of data, both formal and informal, that were used to prepare this report. Appendix B provides the definition of acronyms and abbreviations used throughout the report. All times during the flight are given in Greenwich mean time (G.m.t.) and mission elapsed time (MET). The six-person crew for STS-77 consisted of John H. Casper, Col., U. S. Air Force, Commander; Curtis L. Brown, Jr., Lt. Col., U. S. Air Force, Pilot; Andrew S. W. Thomas, Civilian, Ph.D., Mission Specialist 1; Daniel W. Bursch, CDR., U. S. Navy, Mission Specialist 2; Mario Runco, Jr., Civilian, Mission Specialist 3; and Marc Gameau, Civilian, PhD, Mission Specialist 4.
The ZrNi hydride has been assessed as reversible hydrogen storage material in actuators of gas gap heat switches for applications involving hydride compressors in closed-cycle Joule-Thomson sorption cryocoolers.
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Two continuous operation 18 K/20 K sorption coolers are being developed by JPL for the ESA Planck mission to provide about 200 mW of cooling at 18 K and 1.4 W at 20 K. A detailed performance prediction model has been developed to support the design process and to evaluate the results of a prototype testing.
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For several future space applications, long life vibration free collers are needed to cover the temperature range from 60K to about 4K. We describe the development of a novel cryogenic system capable of reaching 18K in coupled resevoirs that provide distributed cooling with small temperature fluctuations.
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We present a summary of cryocoolers that are presently available or in development and would be suitable for support of mid-infrared camera on the Next Generation Space Telescope.
Two sorption coolers using hydrogen as the working fluid are currently being fabricated and assembled for flight delivery by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Being vibration free, scalable and with the capability for the cold end to be remotely located from the warm spacecraft are the major advantages of this class of cryo-coolers. These systems have been designed to provide a total cooling capacity (per cooler) of 1 W at a cold end temperature less than 19 K. They will be used for the Planck surveyor mission (2007 launch). In this paper we present the level Of maturity of the hydrogen sorption cooler technology at JPL by describing the design and how it has been validated at the subsystem and system levels.
This paper summarizes experiments on the behavior of hydrogen in the gas gap switch and formation of methane in the CE sorbent beds.
This paper presents Cryocoolers for Space in viewgraph form. The topics include: 1) U.S. Cryocoolers for 4 to 6 Kelvin; 2) Turbo Brayton Cryocooler-Features; 3) HST/NICMOS (Hubble Space Telescope/Near Infrared Camera and Multiobject Spectrometer) 75 Kelvin Cryocooler; 4) Turbo-Brayton Cryocooler-NGST Design; and 5) Two-stage Sorption J-T Cryocooler.
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We have developed models for predicting the performance of helium-based Joule-Thomson continuous-flow cryocoolers using charcoal-pumped sorption compressors. The models take as inputs the number of compressors, desired heat-lift, cold tip temperature, and available precooling temperature and provide design parameters as outputs. Future laboratory development will be used to verify and improve the models. We will present a preliminary design for a two-stage vibration-free cryocooler that is being proposed as part of a mid-infrared camera on NASA's Next Generation Space Telescope. Model predictions show that a 10 mW helium-carbon cryocooler with a base temperature of 5.5 K will reject less than 650 mW at 18 K. The total input power to the helium-carbon stage is 650 mW. These models, which run in MathCad and Microsoft Excel, can be coupled to similar models for hydrogen sorption coolers to give designs for 2-stage vibration-free cryocoolers that provide cooling from approx. 50 K to 4 K.
We have developed models for predicting the performance of helium-based Joule-Thompson continuous-flow cryocoolers using charcoal-pumed sorption compressors.