The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission is a constellation of 4 observatories designed to inv... more The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission is a constellation of 4 observatories designed to investigate the fundamental plasma physics of reconnection in the Earth’s magnetosphere. The various instrument suites measure electric and magnetic fields, energetic particles, and plasma composition. Each spacecraft has undergone extensive environmental testing to prepare it for its minimum 2 year mission. In this paper, we report on the extensive thermal vacuum testing campaign. The testing was performed at the Naval Research Laboratory utilizing the “Big Blue” vacuum chamber. A total of ten thermal vacuum tests were performed, including two chamber certifications, three dry runs, and five tests of the individual MMS observatories. During the test, the observatories were enclosed in a thermal enclosure known as the “hamster cage”. The enclosure allowed for a detailed thermal control of various observatory zone, but at the same time, imposed additional contamination and system performance...
The MMS mission is a constellation of 4 observatories designed to investigate the fundamental pla... more The MMS mission is a constellation of 4 observatories designed to investigate the fundamental plasma physics of reconnection in the Earths magnetosphere. Each spacecraft has undergone extensive environmental testing to prepare it for its minimum 2 year mission. The various instrument suites measure electric and magnetic fields, energetic particles, and plasma composition. Thermal vacuum testing was conducted at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in their Big Blue vacuum chamber. The individual spacecraft were tested and enclosed in a cryopanel enclosure called a Hamster cage. Specific contamination control validations were actively monitored by several QCMs, a facility RGA, and at times, with 16 Ion Gauges. Each spacecraft underwent a bakeout phase, followed by 4 thermal cycles. Unique aspects of the TV environment included slow pump downs with represses, thruster firings, Helium identification, and monitoring pressure spikes with Ion gauges. Various data from these TV tests will b...
A key science priority for planetary exploration is to search for signs of life in our Solar Syst... more A key science priority for planetary exploration is to search for signs of life in our Solar System. Life-detection mission concepts aim to assess whether or not biomolecular signatures of life are present, which requires highly sensitive instrumentation. This introduces greater risk of false positives, and perhaps false negatives. Stringent science-derived contamination requirements for achieving science measurements on life-detection missions necessitate mitigation approaches that minimize, protect from, and prevent science-relevant contamination of critical surfaces of the science payload and provide high confidence to life-detection determinations. To this end, we report on technology advances that focus on understanding contamination transfer from pre-launch processing to end of mission using high-fidelity physics in the form of computational fluid dynamics and sorption physics for monolayer adsorption/desorption, and on developing a new full-spacecraft bio-molecular barrier de...
The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission is a constellation of 4 observatories designed to inv... more The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission is a constellation of 4 observatories designed to investigate the fundamental plasma physics of reconnection in the Earth’s magnetosphere. The various instrument suites measure electric and magnetic fields, energetic particles, and plasma composition. Each spacecraft has undergone extensive environmental testing to prepare it for its minimum 2 year mission. In this paper, we report on the extensive thermal vacuum testing campaign. The testing was performed at the Naval Research Laboratory utilizing the “Big Blue” vacuum chamber. A total of ten thermal vacuum tests were performed, including two chamber certifications, three dry runs, and five tests of the individual MMS observatories. During the test, the observatories were enclosed in a thermal enclosure known as the “hamster cage”. The enclosure allowed for a detailed thermal control of various observatory zone, but at the same time, imposed additional contamination and system performance...
The MMS mission is a constellation of 4 observatories designed to investigate the fundamental pla... more The MMS mission is a constellation of 4 observatories designed to investigate the fundamental plasma physics of reconnection in the Earths magnetosphere. Each spacecraft has undergone extensive environmental testing to prepare it for its minimum 2 year mission. The various instrument suites measure electric and magnetic fields, energetic particles, and plasma composition. Thermal vacuum testing was conducted at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in their Big Blue vacuum chamber. The individual spacecraft were tested and enclosed in a cryopanel enclosure called a Hamster cage. Specific contamination control validations were actively monitored by several QCMs, a facility RGA, and at times, with 16 Ion Gauges. Each spacecraft underwent a bakeout phase, followed by 4 thermal cycles. Unique aspects of the TV environment included slow pump downs with represses, thruster firings, Helium identification, and monitoring pressure spikes with Ion gauges. Various data from these TV tests will b...
A key science priority for planetary exploration is to search for signs of life in our Solar Syst... more A key science priority for planetary exploration is to search for signs of life in our Solar System. Life-detection mission concepts aim to assess whether or not biomolecular signatures of life are present, which requires highly sensitive instrumentation. This introduces greater risk of false positives, and perhaps false negatives. Stringent science-derived contamination requirements for achieving science measurements on life-detection missions necessitate mitigation approaches that minimize, protect from, and prevent science-relevant contamination of critical surfaces of the science payload and provide high confidence to life-detection determinations. To this end, we report on technology advances that focus on understanding contamination transfer from pre-launch processing to end of mission using high-fidelity physics in the form of computational fluid dynamics and sorption physics for monolayer adsorption/desorption, and on developing a new full-spacecraft bio-molecular barrier de...
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