James Butterworth

Pulse tube coolers for Meteosat third generation

Air Liquides Large Pulse Tube Coolers (LPTC) will be used to cool the focal planes of the Infrared Sounder (IRS) and Flexible Combined Imager (FCI) instruments aboard the ESA/Eumetsat satellites Meteosat Third Generation (MTG). This cooler consists of an opposed piston linear compressor driving a pulse tube cold head and the associated drive electronics including temperature regulation and vibration cancellation algorithms. Preparations for flight qualification of the cooler are now underway. In this paper we present results of the optimization and qualification activities as well as an update on endurance testing.

150K - 200K miniature pulse tube cooler for micro satellites

Air Liquide is working with the CNES and Steel electronique in 2013 to design, manufacture and test a Miniature Pulse Tube Cooler (MPTC) to cool infrared detectors for micro-satellite missions. The cooler will be particularly adapted to the needs of the CNES MICROCARB mission to study atmospheric Carbon Dioxide which presents absorption lines in the thermal near infrared, at 1.6 μm and 2.0 μm. The required cooler temperature is from 150 to 200K with cooling power between 1 and 3 watts. The overall electrical power budget including electronics is less than 20W with a 288-300K rejection temperature. Particular attention is therefore paid to optimizing overall system efficiency. The active micro vibration reduction system and thermal control systems already developed for the Air Liquide Large Pulse Tube Cooler (LPTC) are currently being implemented into a new high efficiency electronic architecture. The presented work concerns the new cold finger and electronic design. The cooler uses the compressor already developed for the 80K Miniature Pulse Tube Cryocooler. This Pulse Tube Cooler addresses the requirements of space missions where extended continuous operating life time (>5 years), low mass and low micro vibration levels are critical.