Two continuous operation 18K/20K sorption cryocoolers are being developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) as a NASA contribution to the European Space Agency (ESA) Planck mission, currently planned for a 2007 launch. Each individual sorption cooler will be capable of providing a total of about 200 mW of cooling power at 18 K and 1.2 W at 20 K, given a passive radiative precooling at 50 K. These coolers work by thermally cycling a metal-hydride to absorb and desorb hydrogen gas, used as the working fluid in a Joule-Thomson (J-T) refrigerator. The major advantage of the sorption coolers is their truly vibration-free operation capability together with the fact that they can be readily scaled to perform over a wide range of cooling powers. The hydrogen sorption coolers will directly cool the Planck Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) HEMT amplifiers to approximately 20 K and will provide precooling at 18 K to the RAL 4 K closed-cycle Helium J-T cooler for the High Frequency Instrument (HFI). The concept design, the cooler operations and the predicted performances of the flight models are here presented.
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