In-Flight Performance of the OCO-2 Cryocooler

Cryogenic Engineering Conference 2015

材料科学;物理学

Na-Nakornpanom, Arthur^1 ; Naylor, Bret J.^1 ; Lee, Richard A. M.^1

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena

CA

91109, United States^1

关键词: Cryocooler system;    Grating spectrometers;    Heat rejection systems;    In-flight performance;    Near-infrared absorption;    Operating temperature;    Pulse tube cryocoolers;    Variable conductance heat pipes;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/101/1/012024/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1757-899X/101/1/012024

学科分类：材料科学（综合）

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) will have completed its first year in space on July 2, 2015. The OCO-2 instrument incorporates three bore-sighted, high-resolution grating spectrometers, designed to measure the near-infrared absorption of reflected sunlight by carbon dioxide and molecular oxygen. The cryocooler system design is coupled with the instrument's thermal control design to maximize the instrument's performance. A single-stage NGAS pulse tube cryocooler provides refrigeration to three focal plane arrays to ∼120 K via a high conductance flexible thermal strap. A variable conductance heat pipe (VCHP) based heat rejection system (HRS) transports waste heat from the instrument located inside the spacecraft to the space-viewing radiators. The HRS provides tight temperature control of the optics to 267 K and maintains the cryocooler at 300 K. Soon after entering the A-Train on August 3, 2014, the optics and focal planes were cooled to their operating temperatures. This paper provides a general overview of the cryogenic system design and reviews the in-flight cryogenic performance during the Observatory's first year.