To understand the response of scientific instrumentation in space a good knowledge of their behavior is needed. This is achieved during the calibration of these instruments on ground. In our advanced calibration facility we can expose space plasma instrumentation to a well characterized positive ion beam, energetic neutral atoms, electrons or UV photons.
During the development process of new instrumentation testing a variety of tests on subsystem level is performed. A lot of these tests require temperature cycling but do not require vacuum. This allows to test these subsystems in dedicated system so called climate chambers. Spacelab has such a climate chamber available for tests with quick turnaround time where no vacuum environment is needed. Our climate chamber is an SD-302 chamber from Associated Environmental Systems.
IRF is successfully building space instrumentation for more than 60 years. To reach this reliability highly skilled personnel is needed. Our staff can support the development of your space hardware on a consultancy basis. Services we offer are: ESA-Certified Soldering In order to reach the needed reliability to withstand space flight, the Institute has ECSS-certified soldering operators with more than 20 years of experience in exploring the solar system.
Current and near future space missions to the gas giant systems imply instrumentation that is specific to extreme space environments dominated by high background radiation or very long mission lifetimes. The lifetime of a space plasma instrument is, beside other factors, highly limited by the lifetime of the detectors. The latter ones, on the other hand, are highly sensitive not only to the particle species of interest, but also to the background radiation.
Planetary protection and risk mitigation is important when working with space hardware. Therefore it is important to integrate and test space hardware in clean integration environments to avoid contamination and ensure operational safety of the instruments built. Several of these environments exist in the laboratories of IRF. The two biggest are the Integrationlab and Baselab.
Space is a thermally challenging environment as no conductive or convective heat transfer to the the surrounding environment is possible. This leaves only radiative heat transfer, the weakest of the three heat transfer types, to cope with the varying temperatures in space and ensuring that your instrument or satellite survive. It is possible to simulate this environment and the effects of you instrument or satellite and apply the obtained results on Earth in a thermal vacuum chamber. During this thermal vacuum test the survival of your instrument or satellite is proven, as required by all major space agencies.
IRF SpaceLab has it’s own Cobalt 60 facility for Total Ionization Dose (TID) testing. TID testing is used to simulate the exposure of electronics to radiation environment. Usually it is an accelerated test compared to the space environment. Our facility provides a Cobalt 60 source with rates of 0.2 – 3.3 rad/h.
For the test of subsystems and with the increasing interest in cubesats small versatile vacuum chambers are becoming more interesting for testing. This increasing interest in small chambers allows a quick turn around time for the tests and in case of our Ratex-J chamber it is also possible to connect a big window to observe the item under test.
Space is a thermally challenging environment as only radiative heat transfer is possible and fast temperature changes due to entering or leaving the eclipse region of a close by body can occur. This leads to thermal stress across all space hardware directly exposed to the Sun with the possibility to accelerated aging or cracks in exposed material. To ensure survival of the space hardware testing in a solar balance chamber like this solar simulator is recommended. This chamber is a thermal vacuum chamber with lamps with adjustable power simulating the solar spectrum with the highest possible accuracy.
Space is a thermally challenging environment as no conductive or convective heat transfer to the the surrounding environment is possible. This leaves only radiative heat transfer, the weakest of the three heat transfer types, to cope with the varying temperatures in space and ensuring that your instrument or satellite survive. It is possible to simulate this environment and the effects of you instrument or satellite and apply the obtained results on Earth in a thermal vacuum chamber. During this thermal vacuum test the survival of your instrument or satellite is proven, as required by all major space agencies.
On space missions with various subsystems unwanted contamination from only one subsystem can lead to damage, malfunction or even failure of any of the subsystems present. To minimize the risks of contamination in space through undesired volatile species, measures have to be taken already on ground. These measures require a bake out of the subsystem before delivery to the spacecraft and might even include bake out of individual mechanical parts, printed circuit boards (PCBs) or harnesses which are located after assembly deep inside the subsystems to remove undesired volatiles. These volatiles can be water, solvents of paint or any other material which is known to outgas in vacuum.
Vibration testing is used to simulate the launch ambiances to the unit under test. This ensures that the rocket’s payload can survive the launch and reach orbit without its functioning being impaired. IRF Kiruna operates in close collaboration with the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) and Luleå University of Technology (LTU) in this field.