Advanced Magnetic Cooling for Sub-Kelvin Instruments

Monday, March 16, 2020 - 07:20 in Physics & Chemistry

PROJECT High-Efficiency Continuous Cooling for Cryogenic Instruments SNAPSHOT To cool proposed future science instruments to operating temperatures well below one Kelvin, NASA is developing an advanced spaceflight magnetic refrigeration system. The CADR team in the lab at NASA Goddard. From left to right: Margaret Hudson, Amir Jahromi, Jim Tuttle, Evan Sheehan, and Richard Ottens. Several proposed future space-science instruments will operate at temperatures well below one Kelvin to enable high-sensitivity astronomical measurements. Magnetic refrigerators have been used to reach these temperatures on past space missions. As space-science detector technology matures and array size (similar to pixels on a camera) grows larger, future instruments will need higher cooling power at even lower temperatures. NASA is developing an advanced multi-stage magnetic cooling system to meet these needs. Many astrophysics instruments, particularly those operating in the X-ray and infrared spectral ranges, can achieve maximum sensitivity by maintaining their detectors at temperatures close to absolute zero. However, conventional spaceflight refrigerators...

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