Mentor: Julie Brisset
Description: Students will work on the design, prototyping, and testing of a high-precision cooling loop for spaceflight payload applications. As space is becoming more and more accessible for research platforms, new technological challenges arise for payload implementation and support. In particular, the current trends in payload miniaturization dramatically increase launch opportunities, so that astrophysics and planetary experimental work can now be designed to run on space-based platforms. In the present project, we address the need for a precision cooling loop (+/- 0.1°C) for future implementation in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) laboratory platforms. Specific challenges include robustness to survive launch conditions, performance in a microgravity environment, and accurate temperature control while in extreme thermal environments (+/- several 100s°C). In addition to hardware appropriately addressing these requirements, the system will require intelligent software to provide accurate cooling as resource-efficiently as possible.
The REU student will work on modifying an existing one-stage liquid cooling loop, previously designed in support of a suborbital flight payload, to a LEO SmallSat platform carrying the same experiment. The new design will need to consider space environmental conditions, as well as aim for increased efficiency and miniaturization. Specific tasks include thermal design development in Ansys, CAD in SolidWorks, prototype parts selection and assembly, as well as prototype laboratory testing.