Cryogenic system for the infrared space telescope SPICA

Hiroyuki Sugita; Yoichi Sato; Takao Nakagawa; Hiroshi Murakami; Hidehiro Kaneda; Keigo Enya; Masahide Murakami; Shoji Tsunematsu; Masayuki Hirabayashi

doi:10.1117/12.788721

12 July 2008 Cryogenic system for the infrared space telescope SPICA

Hiroyuki Sugita, Yoichi Sato, Takao Nakagawa, Hiroshi Murakami, Hidehiro Kaneda, Keigo Enya, Masahide Murakami, Shoji Tsunematsu, Masayuki Hirabayashi

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 7010, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2008: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter; 701030 (2008) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.788721
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2008, Marseille, France

Abstract

The SPICA mission has been proposed to JAXA as the second Japanese IR space telescope to be launched in 2017. The SPICA spacecraft, launched with an H-IIA launch vehicle, is to be transferred into a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth L2, where effective radiant cooling is feasible owing to solar rays and radiant heat fluxes from the Earth constantly coming from the same direction. That optimal thermal environment enables this IR space telescope to use a large 3.5-mdiameter- single-aperture primary mirror cooled to 4.5 K with advanced mechanical cryocoolers and effective radiant cooling instead of a massive and short-lived cryogen. As a result of thermal and structural analyses, the thermal design of cryogenic system was obtained. Then, mechanical cryocoolers have been developed to meet cooling requirement at 1.7 K, 4.5 K and 20 K. The latest results of upgrading of the 20 K-class two-stage Stirling cooler, the 4K-class JT cooler, and the 1K-class JT cooler indicate that all cryocoolers gain a sufficient margin of cooling capacity with unprecedentedly low power consumption for the cooling requirement. It is concluded that the feasibility of the SPICA mission was confirmed for the critical cryogenic system design, while some attempts to achieve higher reliability, higher cooling capacity and less vibration have been continued for stable operations throughout the entire mission period.

Citation Download Citation

Hiroyuki Sugita, Yoichi Sato, Takao Nakagawa, Hiroshi Murakami, Hidehiro Kaneda, Keigo Enya, Masahide Murakami, Shoji Tsunematsu, and Masayuki Hirabayashi "Cryogenic system for the infrared space telescope SPICA", Proc. SPIE 7010, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2008: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter, 701030 (12 July 2008); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.788721

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