A Case Study of a Successful Cryogenic Cooler Development Program

Abstract

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has been developing long life cryogenic coolers for use in space since the 1970s. Emphasis has been steadfastly maintained on the goal of developing cryogenic coolers that can operate in an unattended manner for 5 to 10 years with very high reliability. It has been the experience of Goddard cooler personnel that many institutions still do not have an appreciation of the difficulties involved in developing such a cooler. In this paper, a successful cooler development program will be presented as a case study of the process required to develop a highly reliable, long-life cryogenic cooler.

The case study covers the period 1987 through the present. It will cover the setting of the cooler requirements, the development of a program plan that lays out the resources and schedule for the overall program, the development of analytical tools used to model the most difficult technical aspects of the cooler, the hardware development and functional test cycle and the iteration of the cycle through a series of models, and the life testing. Lessons learned during the cooler development will be discussed.