Instrumented, Reconfigurable Vacuum Chamber for Ground, Parabolic, and Suborbital Flight Testing

Project Objective  

A compact, reconfigurable vacuum chamber can accommodate diverse experiments for ground testing, parabolic, and suborbital flight environments, enabling access to microgravity testing.

Project Description 

Environmental testing is a critical component of risk reduction for space missions. Ground-based thermal vacuum testing is utilized by several MSFC projects, making access to this testing extremely important. Additionally, simulated microgravity is a major component of the space environment, and it is difficult to access. Flight experiments are high in both time and monetary costs. Streamlined access to suborbital and parabolic flight experiments and ground testing capabilities are important for NASA and Marshall to continue high-caliber science and technology development.

Previous work has been done to conduct flight experiments for the development of in-space laser beam welding. A simple vacuum chamber, conceived for a previous center investment proposal, now has potential to become a modular, compact thermal vacuum chamber, with a design that allows variable chamber volumes and instrumentation ports. This proposal will enable this development to take place. The size of the chamber allows it to fit on ES31’s 3-axis rate table, and it is versatile enough to use for both ground and suborbital/parabolic flight experiments. Thermal capabilities will support ground testing, but development of this chamber is a step towards enabling thermal capabilities of the chamber during flight experiments.

Project Results and Conclusions 

A prototype chamber was constructed to support laser beam welding experiments, demonstrating vacuum level, sample positioning, and welding capabilities. This effort became the jumping off point for DISCMAN (DIsk-shaped Configurable and Modular vAcuum uNit) - an STMD project targeting deployment in the Voyager Airlock on the International Space Station. There is still forward work to expand DISCMAN's design to other types of testing and the addition of heating/cooling capabilities.

This project has directly benefited NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, as a flight payload based off of this prototype has been funded for development. This flight payload will advance the understanding of space environments (vacuum and microgravity) on the laser welding process and how it will impact In-Space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing via laser processes.

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