Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

1. INTRODUCTION TO CRYOGENICS

Cryogenics is the study of how to get to low temperatures and of how

materials behave when they get there. Besides the familiar temperature scales
of Fahrenheit and Celsius (Centigrade), cryogenicists use other temperature
scales, the Kelvin and Rankine temperature scale. Although the apparatus used
for spacecraft is specialized, some of the general approaches are the same as
used in everyday life. Cryogenics involves the study of low temperatures from
about 100 Kelvin to absolute zero.

One interesting feature of materials at low temperatures is that the air

condenses into a liquid. The two main gases in air are oxygen and nitrogen.
Liquid oxygen, "lox" for short, is used in rocket propulsion. Liquid nitrogen is
used as a coolant. Helium, which is much rarer than oxygen or nitrogen, is
also used as a coolant. In more detail, cryogenics is the study of how to
produce low temperatures or also the study of what happens to materials when
you have cooled them down.

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 1 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

2. CRYOGENICS IN SPACE

Cryogenics is the study of low temperatures, from about 100 Kelvin

(-280 Fahrenheit) down to absolute zero. In more detail, cryogenics is:
 the study of how to produce low temperatures;
 the study of what happens to materials when you've cooled them down.
 If you're new to cryogenics, check out our Introduction to Cryogenics
page.
 Cryogenics is not:
 the study of freezing and reviving people, called "cryonics", a
confusingly similar term.

Some Uses of Cryogenics

Astronomers at the Goddard Space Flight Center are always working

to develop ever more sensitive sensors to catch even the weakest signals
reaching us from the stars. Many of these sensors must be cooled well below
room temperature to have the necessary sensitivity. Here are some examples
of how cooling helps:
 Infrared Sensors: infrared rays, also called "heat rays" are given off by all
warm objects. Infrared telescopes must be cold so that their own
radiation doesn't swamp the weak infrared signals from faraway
astronomical objects. There will be infrared telescopes on the airborne
infrared observatory SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared
Astronomy.
 Electronics: all sensors require electronics. Cooling electronics reduces
the noise in the circuits and thus allows them to study weaker signals.
 X-rays: the sensors for XRS, the X-Ray Spectrometer measure
temperature changes induced by incoming x-rays. When the sensors are
colder, the induced temperature changes are larger and easier to measure.

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 2 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

3. CONCEPT OF ABSOLUTE ZERO

Absolute zero, according to current scientific thought, is the lowest

temperature that could ever be. In fact, it’s so low that we can never quite
reach it, although research teams have come within a fraction of a degree. So
if we can never get there, how do we know it’s really there?

The first clue to the existence of absolute zero came from the
expansion and contraction of gasses. We know that hot air rises and cold air
falls. Air rises when it’s heated because it expands, so it’s less dense than the
cooler air around it. It has buoyancy, just like a piece of wood in a pond,
which floats because it’s less dense than the water. Air sinks when it cools
because it contracts, so it’s denser than the warmer air around it.

Suppose we took a certain amount of air and cooled it as much as we

could. How much would it shrink? When scientists first began studying the
behavior of of heated and cooled gasses, they didn’t have our modern cooling
methods. They measured as best they could over the temperature range that
they could reach. Then they plotted their data on graphs.

The graph of volume vs. temperature for a sample of gas forms a

straight line. (This assumes that you keep the pressure constant.) The lower
the temperature, the lower the volume. If you extend this line to low enough
temperatures, it will eventually hit zero volume. Scientists noticed that, for all
gasses, the temperature at which the graph said they would reach zero volume
was about -273 Celsius (about -460 Fahrenheit).

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 3 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

This temperature became known as absolute zero, and is today the

zero for the Kelvin and Rankine temperature scales. Nowadays, we know that
gasses do not shrink to zero volume when cooled to absolute zero, because
they condense into liquids at higher temperatures. However, absolute zero
remains one of the basic concepts in cryogenics to this day.

Although nothing can be colder than absolute zero, there are a few
physical systems that can have what are called negative absolute temperatures.
Oddly enough, such systems are hotter than some with positive temperatures!

Negative Absolute Temperatures

Are there negative absolute temperatures? This is an answer yet to be

reckoned with. Physicists have defined a negative absolute temperature, but
it’s a bit flakey, for these reasons:
 it only applies to certain physical systems (those with a small number
of energy levels),
 negative temperatures are hotter than (some) positive temperatures,
 A system with a negative temperature will eventually cool down (or
warm up, depending on how you look at it) to a positive temperature,
even if it is insulated perfectly from its surroundings.

Here’s a bit more detail. Certain physical systems have small set of
energy levels that they can be in. For example, a laser uses this principle. The
atoms (or molecules) that produce the lasing effect can be in one of a number
of energy states. Normally, only a small percentage of the atoms are in the
highest energy states; many more are in the low energy states. Scientists have
found equations that describe how many of the atoms are in which energy
state. As you might imagine, these equations depend on temperature. The
hotter the system, the more atoms are in the higher energy state. In fact, if you

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 4 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

know what fraction of the atoms are in each energy state, you can plug that
into the equation and solve for the temperature. A laser operates by pumping
energy into the atoms, pushing many of them into the high energy states.
When the atoms drop back into the lower energy states, they give off the
energy as a beam of laser light. But between the time they get pumped up and
the time they drop back, they’re in an abnormal state, with lots more atoms
than normal in the high energy state. If you plug this abnormal distribution
into the equation and solve for temperature, you may get a negative number.

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 5 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

4. CRYOGENIC LIQUIDS

Liquid air sounds like a contradiction in terms. In fact, it's not: air,
when cooled enough, condenses into a liquid and even freezes solid. We're
familiar with this phenomenon in the case of water: steam condenses to liquid
water which freezes to ice. Or, to put it the other way, ice melts to form water
at 0 Centigrade and boils to produce steam at 100 Centigrade. (These
temperatures change as the pressure changes. At high altitudes, for example,
water boils at a lower temperature because of the lower air pressure.) Carbon
dioxide is another familiar example of a gas that freezes: it can be cooled and
frozen as "dry ice".

All gases, when cooled, condense. Two gases often used in their
liquid forms are nitrogen and helium. These are the commonly used cryogenic
liquids. Nitrogen gas, when cooled, condenses at -195.8 Celsius (77.36
Kelvin) and freezes at -209.86 Celsius (63.17 Kelvin.) Or, to reverse the order,
solid nitrogen melts to form liquid nitrogen at 63.17 Kelvin, which boils at
77.36 Kelvin. Liquid nitrogen is used in many cryogenic cooling systems.

Liquid helium boils at -268.93 Centigrade (4.2 Kelvin). Helium does

not freeze at atmospheric pressure. Only at pressures above 20 times
atmospheric will solid helium form. Liquid helium, because of its low boiling
point, is used in many cryogenic systems when temperatures below the boiling
point of nitrogen are needed.

Cryogenicists talk about various kinds of helium. They distinguish

between the two naturally occurring isotopes, helium 3 and helium 4. Helium
4 makes up over 99% of naturally occurring helium. Hence, when we speak of
"helium", without specifying which isotope, we're usually speaking of helium
4. Helium 4's nucleus consists of two protons and two neutrons, for an atomic

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 6 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

weight of 4.Helium 3, the rarer isotope, has a nucleus of two protons and one
neutron. Helium 3 boils at 3.2 Kelvin. This boiling point is one degree colder
than that of helium 4. Both helium 4 and helium 3 can be cooled to below
their boiling temperatures by reducing the pressure to below atmospheric
pressure. Liquid helium, like water, boils at a lower temperature when the
pressure is lower. In fact, when liquid helium is kept in containers that are at
atmospheric pressure, the helium temperature changes as atmospheric high
and low pressure areas pass. These temperature changes are small, but
measurable. With vacuum pumps, we can reduce the pressure in a helium
container much more than happens with normal atmospheric pressure changes.
As a practical matter, a pumped bath of liquid helium 4 can be used to cool
down to about 1 Kelvin. A pumped bath of liquid helium 3 can be used to cool
down to about 0.3 Kelvin

A convenient way to cool many kinds of apparatus is to submerge

them in liquid helium or liquid nitrogen. Liquid helium and nitrogen are
usually stored in vacuum insulated flasks, called Dewars, after their inventor,
Sir James Dewar. (Dewars are familiar to most of us under the brand name
"Thermos".)

Colder than Liquid Helium

To reach temperatures even colder than liquid helium, we use the

adiabatic demagnetization refrigerator (ADR).

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 7 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

5. ADIABATIC DEMAGNETIZATION
REFRIGERATOR(ADR)

Adiabatic Demagnetization Refrigerators (ADRs) are used to cool

space-based detectors to low temperatures to minimize the noise in the data
obtained.  An ADR contains a magneto caloric material, which can be made to
absorb or release heat with applied magnetic fields.  Selection of a magneto
caloric material for use in an ADR is based largely on the refrigerant's cooling
power, which is a function of its heat capacity.  The heat capacity of
gadolinium fluoride is being measured at several constant magnetic fields by
applying known amounts of heat and recording the resultant temperature
changes.  Results are not yet available.

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 8 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

An ADR is a refrigerator that operates in cycles, alternating between

two states: cooling and recycling.  An ADR cools by absorbing heat energy
isothermally in a magneto-caloric material (a paramagnetic "salt pill") in the
presence of a decreasing magnetic field.  When the refrigerant has absorbed
the maximum amount of energy it can hold, that energy must be dumped to a
heat sink; this is the recycling state.  When recycling, the magnetic field is
increased, the material warms up, and the heat is drained away by a heat sink. 
It is necessary to ensure that heat flows in the proper direction, from the
detector toward the heat sink; heat switches that can be turned "off" and "on"
are used for this purpose.  A heat switch provides thermal contact between the
detector and the ADR while the ADR is cooling, and another heat switch is
used for conducting heat to the heat sink while the ADR is recycling.  Both of
these switches can be turned off when operation is not required. 

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 9 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

Functions of the basic ADR components

Calorimeters
Calorimeters are sensors which measure heat input. This ADR was
designed to cool calorimeters for the X-Ray Spectrometer (XRS) instrument.
These calorimeters measure the energy of x-ray photons by measuring the heat
energy deposited when the photons are absorbed. The instrument will be used
to measure x-rays coming from distant astronomical objects.

Heat Switch
The heat switch is used to allow heat to be dumped periodically to the
helium bath (not shown.) The main components are: external shell (the brown
cutaway part); getter chamber and connecting tube (off the left end); and the
interleaved copper end pieces (the yellowish, reddish pieces that almost
touch.)

Thermal Bus
The thermal busses (shown here in yellow) are copper rods that
connect the calorimeters (which need to be cooled) with the salt pill (where
the cooling action takes place.)

Salt Pill
The salt pill is where the cooling action takes place. The pill (actually
a cylinder) is made of ferric ammonium alum (FAA), also called ferric
ammonium sulfate. FAA was chosen to give good cooling power in the
temperature range where this ADR wil operate. (Other ADR's use other
materials.) When in use, the salt pill end of the ADR is slid into a
superconducting magnet. Changing the applied magnetic field causes the salt
pill to cool or heat. The horizontal lines running through the salt pill represent
the wires that provide good thermal contact from the salt pill material to the
heat switch and thermal busses.

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 10 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

Suspension
The outer structure of the ADR consists of metal rings and tubes,
which allow the ADR to fit securely within the superconducting magnet. (The
magnet is not shown in this drawing.) The salt pill is suspended within this
rigid outer structure by means of Kevlar cords. (Kevlar is a DuPont
trademark.) Kevlar is strong enough to hold the salt pill in place during the
stress of launch, but has low thermal conductivity so that not much heat leaks
into the salt pill through the suspension. The ends of the Kevlar lines are
attached to bolts (shown in blue.) By turning the bolts, technicians can tighten
or loosen the cords.

Heat Switch Shell

The brown part with the cutaway upper edge is the shell of the heat
switch. The shell is a cylinder. It is made of Vespel, a polyimide material,
which provides high strength with low thermal conductivity. (Vespel is a
DuPont trademark.) Not shown in this drawing is a layer of titanium foil on
the outside of the Vespel, to block room temperature permeation of helium
from the heat switch.

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 11 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

Limitations of the ADR

The ADR must warm up periodically to dump stored heat into the
"warm" end temperature sink. During the warm part of the cycle, the whole
ADR, including whatever sensors it may be cooling, is warm. One reason that
the XRS ADR can have such a long cold part of the cycle (over a day) is that
the "warm" heat sink is at a low temperature -- only 1.3 Kelvin. If the
temperature of the "warm" heat sink were raised, then the cold part of the
ADR's cycle would shrink, and the warm part would lengthen.

In other words, the performance of the ADR decreases as the "warm"

heat sink is raised. This decrease in performance makes it difficult to use a
mechanical cooler as the "warm" heat sink. Mechanical coolers small enough
for satellite use, at present, can cool down only as far as 6 to 8 Kelvin. An
ADR operating with a cold temperature of 60 milli Kelvin and a heat sink
temperature of 6 to 8 Kelvin would have to warm up much more frequently
than the XRS ADR would.

Despite this drawback, it would be convenient to use a mechanical

cooler instead of a liquid helium bath. The liquid helium bath slowly
evaporates, until it is completely gone. A mechanical cooler, especially a
highly reliable one, has no such limit on its cooling life. This is why the
Advanced ADR (AADR) was developed.

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 12 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

6. ADVANCED ADR (AADR)

The Advanced Adiabatic Demagnetization Refrigerator is a

multistage Adiabatic Demagnetization Refrigerator (ADR). Each stage passes
the absorbed heat to the next stage in line. The last stage (the "hot" stage)
passes the heat to the heat sink, which could be a liquid helium bath or
mechanical cryo-cooler. The Adiabatic Demagnetization Refrigerator (ADR)
is a magnetic cooling system that has been used routinely in the laboratory for
cooling to temperatures below the temperature of liquid helium. Astronomers
are now developing sensors for x-ray and infrared astronomy which will
operate in this temperature range. Since these sensors are more sensitive than
their higher temperature predecessors, cryogenic engineers are now hard at
work on the systems to cool them in orbit.

One purpose of the advanced ADR is to combine the high

performance of the XRS ADR with the convenience of a mechanical cooler.
The advanced ADR is not just one ADR, it's a group. The design uses a series
of simple, standard ADR's (each with one salt pill) to bridge the temperature
gap between the sensors (at, say 60 milli-Kelvin) and the mechanical cooler
(at 6 to 8 Kelvin.) Each standard ADR would have a relatively small
temperature drop across it, and thus would be able to remain cold for a long
time.

Schematic

Here is a schematic diagram of one possible advanced ADR. The

ADR shown has 3 salt pills, a hot end salt pill, a cold end salt pill, and a
middle salt pill. Each salt pill has its own magnet, which controls the
temperature in that pill. Between the salt pills are heat switches and Kevlar
supports. The upper two magnets in this design are shown surrounded by

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 13 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

magnetic shielding, to prevent the magnetic fields from interfering with other
equipment.

Working

Heat is constantly leaking into the advanced ADR from warmer

surroundings. It can come in through the physical supports. It can also come in
as infrared radiation -- perhaps the radiation that is being studied by the
astronomical sensor that the advanced ADR is cooling. Also, the electronics in
the astronomical sensors might create a small amount of heat

Into the Cold End Salt Pill

The purpose of the cold end salt pill is to absorb this heat, so that the
astronomers' sensors can stay at their best operating temperature. To hold the
cold end temperature steady while the heat is flowing in, the ADR operators
must slowly reduce the magnetic field produced by the magnet at the cold end
pill. The operators must remove the stored energy from the cold end salt pill
before they ramp the magnetic field all the way down to zero. For that step,
they send the heat:

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 14 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

From the Cold End Salt Pill to the Middle Salt Pill
The middle salt pill is designed so that it can be cooled to a
temperature slightly colder than that of the cold end salt pill. That's just what
the operators do when they're ready to dump the heat from the cold end to
middle pill. (They cool the middle salt pill down by reducing the magnetic
field produced by the magnet that surrounds it.) Then they activate the heat
switch that connects the middle and cold end salt pills. This allows heat to
flow from the cold end pill to the (now slightly colder) middle pill.

As heat flows from the cold end salt pill, operators must increase the
magnetic field produced by the magnet that surrounds the cold end pill. If they
left the field constant, the temperature of the salt pill would drop as the heat
flowed out. When they have transferred as much heat, and ramped up the cold
end magnetic field, as much as they want, the operators stop ramping up the
magnetic field. They then turn the heat switch off, to block any flow of heat
back from the middle pill to the cold end pill.

The operators must also start slowly decreasing the field of the cold
end salt pill's magnet, to keep the temperature in the cold end pill constant.

From the Middle Salt Pill to the Hot End Salt Pill
Before they can transfer heat from the middle pill to the hot end pill,
operators must bring the middle pill up to the top of its temperature range and
bring the hot end pill to the bottom of its temperature range. They do this by
ramping up the magnetic field of the middle salt pill magnet and ramping
down the field of the hot end salt pill magnet. When the middle salt pill's
temperature is higher than the hot end pill's, operators turn on the heat switch
that connects the 2 pills. Heat now flows from the middle pill to the slightly
colder hot end pill.

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 15 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

When the heat has been transferred, the operators turn off the mid to hot end
heat switch.

From the Hot End Salt Pill to the Heat Sink

Operators now heat up the hot end salt pill (by ramping up the
magnetic field of the hot end magnet.) They then activate the heat switch that
connects the hot end salt pill to the heat sink. The sink might be a liquid
helium bath (in which case operators can dump the heat quickly) or a
mechanical cryo-cooler (in which case operators must dump the heat more
slowly.)

All the time that the middle and hot end salt pills have been
transferring the heat out, the cold end salt pill has been absorbing heat,
preparing to start the cycle over again

ADVANTAGES

Greater Temperature Range

There's a limit to the temperature range of a single stage ADR, that is,
the range between the coldest temperature it can reach and the temperature of
its "hot" end heat sink. That limit is set by the properties of the salt pill
material. A multi-stage ADR can have a greater temperature range because it
can use a series of salt pills of different materials with overlapping
temperature ranges.

Mechanical Cooler as Heat Sink

A multi-stage Advanced ADR could have a "hot" end temperature as
high as 10 Kelvin -- high enough to use a mechanical cooler as heat sink --
while still cooling down to milli-Kelvin temperatures. By contrast, the single-

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 16 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

stage XRS ADR had such a low high-end temperature, 1.3 Kelvin, that the
only heat sink it could use was a bath of liquid helium -- a bath that evaporates
away as it cools.

Continuous Cooling
A single-stage ADR must shut down periodically to warm up and
dump its load of stored heat into the heat sink. In an Advanced ADR, the end
stage could be cooled periodically by a slightly colder stage. Thus, the end
stage of an Advanced ADR could provide continuous cooling.

Lower Weight
The Advanced ADR could be lower in weight than a long hold time
one-stage ADR. The salt pill of a long hold time one-stage ADR needs to be
large enough to absorb a large amount of heat energy. The salt pills of
a continuous ADR can be much smaller, since they can be cycled frequently
without interrupting the cooling.

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 17 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

7. X-RAY SPECTROMETER (XRS): A COMPLETE

SATELLITE COOLING SYSTEM

The X-Ray Spectrometer (XRS) was a satellite payload with a

cooling system that operated down to sixty thousandths of a degree above
absolute zero.

The XRS is an instrument designed to study x-rays emitted by black

holes and other exotic astronomical objects. The first one was destroyed in a
launch attempt from the Kagoshima Space Center in Japan in February 2000.
A replacement was then built and launched in July 2005. Unfortunately, a
problem developed with the liquid helium coolant supply, which suddenly
evaporated only 19 days after the launch. A mishap investigation board is now
being organized to find the cause of the unexpected loss of helium coolant.
We hope that they will pinpoint a problem which can be avoided on future
satellites. In the mean time, however, we know that many of the technologies
used in XRS worked well, and we expect that they will be used in future space
missions.

XRS shows how liquid helium cooling and an ADR can work
together as part of a satellite cooling system. XRS is also interesting for
another reason. Because the volume of liquid helium was so small, the system
included some unusual design features. These features were intended to
lengthen the lifetime of the liquid helium coolant supply by reducing the need
for cooling.

To work properly, the x-ray astronomy sensors in XRS needed to be

cooled to sixty thousandths of a degree above absolute zero. For this
temperature range, we chose an Adiabatic Demagnetization Refrigerator
(ADR). The ADR has been used in laboratories on the ground for years, and is
Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 18 MESCE Kuttippuram
Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

thus a well-established technology. Another commonly used laboratory cooler

for this temperature range is the liquid helium dilution refrigerator. For
satellite use, the ADR has 2 important advantages over the dilution
refrigerator. First, the ADR is more efficient. Efficiency is important in a
satellite, where electric power and all other resources are strictly limited.
Second, the dilution refrigerator requires a complicated internal plumbing
system. This plumbing would be difficult to adapt for a satellite. In one part of
the plumbing, a lighter liquid floats on top of a heavier liquid. It would be
difficult to design a replacement for this part of the system which would work
in zero gravity.

All the really low temperature cooling systems have one thing in
common. Unlike the refrigerator in your kitchen, none of these systems will
work at room temperature. They all must be cooled to low temperatures in
order to produce the even lower temperatures that we are aiming for. The XRS
ADR was cooled by a tank of liquid helium at 1.3 Kelvin (1.3 degrees above
absolute zero. Surrounding the liquid helium tank was a tank of solid neon at
17 Kelvin (17 degrees above absolute zero.). At Goddard the helium tank, the
ADR, the x-ray sensors, were all built and all the equipment attached directly
to them.

Liquid helium cools by evaporating as it absorbs heat, just as, on a

warm day, we are cooled by the perspiration that evaporates from us. For
XRS, we had to design the system to have a tiny evaporation rate, much
smaller than had been done before in a satellite. Because of the small space
available in the satellite, the XRS helium tank could only carry 18 to 20 liters
of liquid helium. This supply of liquid helium had to last for the 2 years of the
mission. By comparison, in one laboratory cryogenic system I used recently,
that much helium evaporated in a single day.

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 19 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

On the ground, some laboratories have machines that capture the

helium vapor and re-condense it to form liquid helium. Unfortunately, such
helium liquefiers are much bigger than the space available for the entire XRS
instrument. So we had to concentrate on making the helium evaporate as
slowly as possible.

Working of the XRS

The detectors in XRS are X-ray micro calorimeters. They work by

monitoring the temperature of a tiny piece of silicon, and measuring the
temperature rise that result when it absorbs an X-ray photon.

You might imagine that measuring the temperature rise from a single
photon is fairly difficult, and you'd be right! Briefly, here is how it is done:

 First, the X-rays must be focused onto the detectors. This is done with
a set of conical mirrors made of hundreds of layers of very thin foil.
 The detectors need to be kept extremely cold (60 milli Kelvin). This
requires a complex cryogenic system, including liquid helium and
solid neon. It also requires the use of several filters to keep out stray
light, radio waves, and any other radiation other than X-rays.
 The signals from the detectors are amplified and shaped by a package
of analog electronics and then processed digitally to determine the
energy of each photon.

Here is a block diagram of the instrument (minus the mirrors), and a

brief description of each subsystem.

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 20 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

XRS Cryogenic System

In addition to the need to keep the heat capacity of the absorber to the
minimum, the XRS must operate at a low temperature to minimize the phonon
noise and maximize the sensitivity of the resistive thermometer. To achieve
the required energy resolution, with the required detector size implies that the
operating temperature must be below 0.1 K. For the XRS, there are four stages
of cooling.

The primary source of cooling is a 130 liter solid neon dewar. The
life of the neon is extended by the use of a mechanical cooler which cools the
outer radiation shield of the dewar. The solid neon maintains a temperature of

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 21 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

17 K, and surrounds a 32 liter tank filled with liquid helium. The liquid
helium is vented to space, and maintains a temperature of K. The final
stage of cooling is accomplished via the use of an adiabatic demagnetization
refrigerator (ADR). This allows operation down to 50 mK; for the XRS, the
nominal operating temperature will be 60 mK. Accurate temperature
regulation is crucial, as the detector response depends directly on its

temperature. A change in temperature results in a corresponding change in the

energy scale calibration. Therefore the ADR is specified to maintain the

temperature to better than 10 K rms over a 10s to 10min timescale.

Longer term temperature drifts are accounted for by a dedicated calibration
pixel. Temperature control is accomplished by adjusting the magnetic field via
a feedback loop. The expected lifetime of the on-board cryogens is
years. This corresponds to operating the cooler 50% of the time; a slightly
longer lifetime is expected if the cooler can operate at all times.

The ADR operates by aligning the magnetic moments (electron spins)

of the molecules in the salt pill with a superconducting magnet, running at
A and providing a magnetic field of Tesla. At the start of a cycle, the
magnet is ramped up to a full field and the salt pill is connected to the liquid
helium bath via a gas-gap heat switch, transferring the heat to the liquid
helium bath. Once the salt pill has reached equilibrium, the heat switch is
opened, and at this point the magnetic field is reduced to nearly zero. This
allows the spins of the electrons in the salt molecules to randomize
adiabatically, causing the salt to cool as they do. It is expected that the Astro-
E2 ADR can maintain the 60 mK temperature while in orbit for 1 day, at
which point the magnetic spins are completely randomized, and no more heat
can be absorbed. At this point, a ``recharge'' of the refrigerator is necessary,
and the cycle is started again. The ``recharge'' of the refrigerator, typically

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 22 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

lasting hour, can be done partially while the observed astrophysical target
is behind the Earth.

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 23 MESCE Kuttippuram

Seminar Report ’05 Cryogenics and its Space Applications

8. REFERENCES

1. www.nasa.gov.
2. “Cryogenics and Refrigeration” by Barrom.

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. 24 MESCE Kuttippuram