Thermal architecture for the SPIDER flight cryostat
Abstract
We describe the cryogenic system for SPIDER, a balloon-borne microwave polarimeter that will map 8% of the sky with degree-scale angular resolution. The system consists of a 1284 L liquid helium cryostat and a 16 L capillary-filled superfluid helium tank, which provide base operating temperatures of 4 K and 1.5 K, respectively. Closed-cycle helium-3 adsorption refrigerators supply sub-Kelvin cooling power to multiple focal planes, which are housed in monochromatic telescope inserts. The main helium tank is suspended inside the vacuum vessel with thermally insulating fiberglass flexures, and shielded from thermal radiation by a combination of two vapor cooled shields and multi-layer insulation. This system allows for an extremely low instrumental background and a hold time in excess of 25 days. The total mass of the cryogenic system, including cryogens, is approximately 1000 kg. This enables conventional long duration balloon flights. We will discuss the design, thermal analysis, and qualification of the cryogenic system.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1106.2507,
title = {Thermal architecture for the SPIDER flight cryostat},
author = {J. E. Gudmundsson and P. A. R. Ade and M. Amiri and S. J. Benton and R. Bihary and J. J. Bock and J. R. Bond and J. A. Bonetti and S. A. Bryan and H. C. Chiang and C. R. Contaldi and B. P. Crill and D. O'Dea and M. Farhang and J. P. Filippini and L. M. Fissel and N. N. Gandilo and S. R. Golwala and M. Halpern and M. Hasselfield and K. R. Helson and G. Hilton and W. Holmes and V. V. Hristov and K. D. Irwin and W. C. Jones and C. L. Kuo and C. J. MacTavish and P. V. Mason and T. E. Montroy and T. A. Morford and C. B. Netterfield and A. S. Rahlin and C. D. Reintsema and J. E. Ruhl and M. C. Runyan and M. A. Schenker and J. A. Shariff and J. D. Soler and A. Trangsrud and C. Tucker and R. S. Tucker and A. D. Turner},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1106.2507},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
11 pages, 4 figures; as published in the conference proceedings for SPIE Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy V (2010)