SBIR-STTR Award

Thermal Management System for Long-Lived Venus Landers
Award last edited on: 7/10/2020

Sponsored Program
SBIR
Awarding Agency
NASA : GRC
Total Award Amount
$699,934
Award Phase
2
Solicitation Topic Code
S3.03
Principal Investigator
Calin Tarau

Company Information

Advanced Cooling Technologies Inc (AKA: ACT)

1046 New Holland Avenue
Lancaster, PA 17601
   (717) 295-6061
   info@1-act.com
   www.1-act.com
Location: Single
Congr. District: 11
County: Lancaster

Phase I

Contract Number: ----------
Start Date: ----    Completed: ----
Phase I year
2010
Phase I Amount
$99,985
Long-lived Venus landers require power and cooling. Heat from the roughly 64 General Purpose Heat Source (GPHS) modules must be delivered to the convertor with minimal ÄT. The cooling system must be shutoff during the transit to Venus without overheating the GPHS modules. This program will develop an alkali metal Variable Conductance Heat Pipe (VCHP) integrated with a two-phase heat collection/transport package (HTP) between the GPHS stack and the convertor. The VCHP allows the Stirling converter to be shutoff during transit to Venus. The two-phase HTP minimizes the temperature drop between the multi-GPHS stack and the heater head. The HTP is required due to the large number of modules that must be interfaced, and the low allowable ÄT between the heater head temperature of 1200oC and the maximum allowable iridium cladding temperature in the GPHS (1266oC). The HTP also improves the convertor efficiency by decreasing the temperature non-uniformities at the high heat flux interface of the hot end of the heater head. It is superior to pumped liquid systems for transferring heat, because it eliminates the low efficiency liquid metal pump that they require. Other advantages of the system include low mass and volume, and a high degree of redundancy.

Phase II

Contract Number: ----------
Start Date: ----    Completed: ----
Phase II year
2011
Phase II Amount
$599,949
The overall program objective is to develop a high-temperature passive thermal management system for the Radioisotope Power Conversion system that energizes the refrigeration system applicable to Venus missions. The innovation consists of a high temperature alkali metal variable conductance heat pipe (VCHP) integrated with a two-phase heat collection / transport package from the General Purpose Heat Source (GPHS) stack to the Stirling convertor heater head. The thermal management system collects the heat from the GPHS modules, and delivers heat as required to the Stirling system. Any excess heat is removed by the VCHP. Excess heat must be removed when the Stirling system is shut down, or in the early stages of a mission powered by a short-life radioisotope. In Phase I, it was demonstrated experimentally and theoretically that the VCHP allows the Stirling convertor to: stop during transit to Venus, pre-cool the system before re-entry, work on Venus and execute brief stoppages on Venus. The reservoir is exposed to the environment temperature during the mission and this is a key for the HTTMS to work passively. The other component of the system, the two-phase heat transport package (HTP), minimizes the temperature drop between the multi-GPHS stack and the heater head. In Phase II, a full scale HTTMS will be designed and a representative multi-segment of the full scale HTTMS will be build and tested in relevant environment. This multi-segment contains two or three parallel/redundant heat paths from the simulated GPHS stack to the heater head simulator, in addition to the backup cooling system (VCHP). The full-scale multi-segment HTTMS will be integrated and tested with the corresponding full scale multi-segment of the Intermediate Temperature Thermal Management System (ITTMS) of the Venus Lander.