Abstract
British Aerospace Space Systems Ltd (BAe) under a contract awarded by the European Space Agency (ESA) have commercialised a long life 4K mechanical cooler previously developed by Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL). This commercialisation activity included a review of RAL’s design to ensure suitability for industrial manufacture to a consistent space usage standard, and manufacture of an Engineering Model (EM) which is being subject to characterisation and environmental tests to flight qualification standard.
The 4K cooler consists of a two-stage split Stirling cycle pre-cooler, and a closed cycle Joule Thomson stage to achieve 4K. The closed cycle JT stage has compressors of a similar design to those used in the pre-cooler. The cooler design is presented and the test programme discussed.
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References
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© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Jones, B.G., Ramsay, D.W. (1995). Qualification of a 4 K Mechanical Cooler for Space Applications. In: Ross, R.G. (eds) Cryocoolers 8. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9888-3_54
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9888-3_54
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-9890-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-9888-3
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