Electrochemical-Driven Fluid Pump for Spacecraft Thermal Control, Phase I

With the increasing power demands and longer life spans of space vehicles, their thermal management becomes ever more critical. Accompanying this is an unprecedented need for reduction in spacecraft size and weight. However, reduced weight leads to higher power densities, and waste-heat dissipation densities have grown by an order of magnitude with the use of smaller, more powerful electronics. Active thermal control methods are needed to cope with the increasing heat dissipation requirements and environmental extremes. In recent years, spacecraft have employed mechanically pumped fluid loops to efficiently transfer large amounts of thermal energy between two points by means of a forced liquid convention loop. The development of long-life fluid pumps, however, has not kept pace with the demands of advanced thermal control systems. Conventional electric motor-driven fluid pumps are heavy, bulky, inefficient, and prone to wear. Lynntech proposes to extend the operating temperature range of its long-life, low-power, miniature, electrochemically-driven pumps to -60^oC to 110^oC, which will allow their use in space and planetary environmental extremes.

With the increasing power density of electronics, there is a growing market for miniature, low-power pumps for use in the thermal management of consumer electronics. In particular, the interest in a low-cost, lightweight, quiet, efficient liquid pump for laptop cooling is high. A rugged, long life, low power, miniature pump capable of operating in extreme environments will have applications in the advance thermal control systems that will be required in future robotic missions and spacecraft.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

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