{"id":4277,"date":"2015-05-20T05:33:25","date_gmt":"2015-05-20T05:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revoscience.com\/en\/?p=4277"},"modified":"2015-05-20T05:33:25","modified_gmt":"2015-05-20T05:33:25","slug":"journey-to-space-in-a-vacuum-chamber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/journey-to-space-in-a-vacuum-chamber\/","title":{"rendered":"Journey to Space in a Vacuum Chamber"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Image<\/a>
Image Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When you need to test hardware designed to operate in the vast reaches of space, you start in a vacuum chamber.\u00a0 NASA\u2019s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland has many of them, but Vacuum Chamber 5 (VF-5) is special.\u00a0 Supporting the testing of electric propulsion and power systems, VF-5 has the highest pumping speed of any electric propulsion test facility in the world, which is important in maintaining a continuous space-like environment.<\/span><\/p>\n

The cryogenic panels at the top and back of the chamber house a helium-cooled panel that reaches near absolute zero temperatures (about -440 degrees Fahrenheit). The extreme cold of this panel freezes any air left in the chamber and quickly freezes the thruster exhaust, allowing the chamber to maintain a high vacuum environment. The outer chevrons are cooled with liquid nitrogen to shield the cryogenic panels from the room temperature surfaces of the tank.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most electric propulsion devices, such as Hall Thrusters, use xenon as a propellant, which is very expensive. By capturing the used xenon as ice during testing, researchers are able to recover the propellant to reuse, saving NASA and test customers considerable costs.<\/span><\/p>\n

The oil diffusion pumps along the bottom of the tank capped by circular covers use a low vapor pressure silicon oil to concentrate small amounts of gas to the point where it can be mechanically pumped from the chamber.<\/span><\/p>\n

VF-5 will continue to provide a testing environment for Glenn\u2019s advanced Solar Electric Propulsion technology needed for future astronaut expeditions into deep space, including to Mars.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you need to test hardware designed to operate in the vast reaches of space, you start in a vacuum chamber.\u00a0 NASA\u2019s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland has many of them, but Vacuum Chamber 5 (VF-5) is special.\u00a0 Supporting the testing of electric propulsion and power systems, VF-5 has the highest pumping speed of any […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/vac_chamber.jpg",1041,1041,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/vac_chamber-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/vac_chamber-300x300.jpg",300,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/vac_chamber.jpg",750,750,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/vac_chamber-1024x1024.jpg",750,750,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/vac_chamber.jpg",1041,1041,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/vac_chamber.jpg",1041,1041,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/vac_chamber.jpg",800,800,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/vac_chamber.jpg",570,570,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/vac_chamber.jpg",600,600,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/vac_chamber.jpg",600,600,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/vac_chamber.jpg",490,490,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/vac_chamber.jpg",360,360,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/vac_chamber.jpg",65,65,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/vac_chamber.jpg",640,640,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/vac_chamber.jpg",96,96,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/vac_chamber.jpg",150,150,false]},"author_info":{"info":["RevoScience"]},"category_info":"Feature<\/a>","tag_info":"Feature","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}