Abstract

This work reports the upgrade of a 10-ft (3.0 m) long x 6-ft (1.8 m) diameter vacuum facility as part of ongoing efforts to address some of the technology gaps in NASA's Moon to Mars mission architecture, which include systems to survive and operate through extended periods in extreme environments. Consequently, a removable thermal shroud has been fabricated and installed to facilitate the simulation of extreme cryogenic conditions. The cooling rates of the shroud and a surrogate test article, using liquid nitrogen as the coolant are analyzed and documented under varying vacuum environments during cryogenic testing. The attainable vacuum level of the TVAC system is equivalent to an altitude range of 100 to 150 km. The measured shroud temperatures are comparable to Low Earth Orbit, lunar surface, and Martian surface extremes. The fully assembled shroud can be reliably cooled to -187 °C (86 K) with the central region achieving an internal temperature of -161 °C (112 K) at a cooling rate ranging from -3 to -5 K/min. The attainable temperature of a surrogate test article further satisfies the cooling criteria outlined in ISO 19683 for spacecraft design qualification and acceptance testing.

Department(s)

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Publication Status

Open Access

Comments

Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Grant 19RT0817

Keywords and Phrases

Cryogenic; Removable shroud; TVAC; Vacuum chamber

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0042-207X

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2026 Elsevier, All rights reserved.

Creative Commons Licensing

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Publication Date

01 Jan 2026

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