Modified Collins Cryocooler for Cryo-Propellant Thermal Management, Phase II

Future lunar and planetary explorations will require the storage of cryogenic propellants, particularly liquid oxygen (LOX) and liquid hydrogen (LH2), in low earth orbit (LEO) for periods of time ranging from days to months, and possibly longer. LEO is a relatively warm thermal environment and without careful thermal management, significant quantities of stored liquid cryogens can be lost due to boil-off.

In addition to application for ZBO of stored cryogenic propellants, sub-cooling to densify LOX and LH2 has the potential to reduce the gross launch weight of a vehicle by up to 20%. Additional applications exist to cool instruments to temperatures as low as 4K. Currently this is accomplished primarily by launching a dewar of liquid helium with the instrument payload. The modified Colling cycle cryocooler technology is particularly well suited to cooling applications in a temperature range from 4K to about 60K. At temperatures above 60K the efficiency advantages of the modified Collins cycle become less significant with respect to that of Stirling and pulse-tube cryocoolers. However, significant technology applications exist in the sub-60K temperature range. These include cooling HTS-transmission cables (60K and lower), the NASA ZBO application (20K), cooling space optical systems (10K), and terrestrial applications such as cooling MRI & NMR magnets (4K) and cooling LTS superconductors and devices (4K).

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