SBIR-STTR Award

NASA Exploration vehicles require improved technologies for passive thermal insulation for zero boil-off of cryopropellants during extended LEO and lunar surface missions. Vehicles such as the Earth Departure Stage and Orion must be capable of multi-day orbital operation with minimal cryopropellant loss, and the Altair Lunar Lander must have minimal cryopropellant loss over a six month mission on the lunar surface. Quest Product Development, teaming with Ball Aerospace, proposes an innovative advanced insulation system, Wrapped-IMLI, which could provide high performance thermal insulation for cryogenic feed lines. Wrapped-IMLI is a multi-layer system using proprietary micromolded polymer spacers to precisely control layer spacing and reduce inter-layer heat conduction. IMLI versions of this concept, for cryotanks, have been proven with a measured thermal conductivity of 8.8*10-5 W/m-K, 37% lower heat leak than conventional MLI. Preliminary research indicates W-IMLI could provide excellent thermal insulation for cryo-feed lines. Propellant boil-off losses are directly influenced by the MLI, which is the biggest heat leak in cryogenic propellant storage. It is known that MLI insulation for cryogenic propellant feed lines is much less effective than MLI for tank insulation. A Ball Defense Program study indicates the heat leak through spiral-wrapped MLI into lines is up to 10 times worse per area than tank MLI. Better insulation for cryo-feed lines is an important enabling technology for NASA Exploration vehicles. In this Phase I project we would model, conduct a trade study on thermal requirements for NASA spacecraft cryogenic feed lines, design W-IMLI, fabricate a prototype and measure thermal performance.

New NASA vehicles (EDS, Orion, landers & orbiting fuel depots) need improved cryogenic propellant transfer & storage for long duration missions. Current cryogen feed line Multi-Layer Insulation (MLI) performance is 10X worse per area than tank MLI insulation. Cryogenic piping heat leak is 50 - 80% of cryotank heat leak, and 40 - 50% of LH2 is lost - about 150,000 gallons ($300,000) - during transfer, chill down & ground hold during each STS launch. Quest Product Development, teaming with Ball Aerospace, proposes to continue development of an innovative advanced insulation system, Wrapped MLI, which could provide improved thermal insulation for cryogenic feed lines. Wrapped MLI (wMLI) is high performance multilayer insulation designed for cryogenic piping that uses Quest's innovative discrete spacer technology to control layer spacing/density and reduce heat leak. The Phase I program successfully proved wMLI feasibility by designing, building and testing a wMLI prototype with a measured heat leak 3.6X lower than spiral-wrapped conventional MLI widely used for piping insulation. A wMLI prototype had a heat leak of 7.3 W/m2, or 27% of the heat leak of conventional MLI (26.7 W/m2). Modeling estimates the thermal performance of wMLI could be further improved by 3-fold, leading to a heat leak of 0.7 W/m2 (20 layers, 77K to 295K), and even larger advantages over conventional MLI piping insulation. In a Phase II program we would further develop wMLI technology with custom, molded polymer spacers, and advance the product toward commercialization via a rigorous testing program including developing advanced vacuum insulated pipe for GSE application. wMLI could provide advanced cryogen transfer line insulation and be the basis of a superior Vacuum Insulated Pipe technology.