Microkelvin thermal control system for the laser interferometer space antenna mission and beyond.

摘要

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission aims to detect directly gravitational waves from massive black holes and galactic binaries. Through detecting gravitational waves, we can study blackholes and the origin of the universe, which is inaccessible from the electromagnetic wave spectrum. It will open a new window to the universe. LISA is essentially a Michelson interferometer placed in space with a third spacecraft added. Gravitational waves are time-varying strain in space-time, which is detectable as a fractional change in a proper distance. LISA will monitor fractional changes in the interferometer arms of a nominally 5 million km. The fractional change in the arm length can be as small as 1 x 10-21 m/(m · Hz ) even for powerful sources.;LISA makes use of the gravitational reference sensors (GRS) for drag-free control and will achieve the required sensitivity through management of specific acceleration noise. The total acceleration disturbance to each proof mass, which floats at the center of each GRS, is required to be below 3 x 10-15 m/(s2 · Hz ). Thermal variations due to, for example, solar irradiation, or temperature gradients across the proof mass housing, are expected to be significant disturbance source to the LISA sensitivity requirements. Even a small temperature gradient can produce distortions in the housing structure, which results in a mass attraction force. In this thesis, I focus on developing a thermal control system that aims to achieve the temperature stability of 10 muK / Hz over 0.1 mHz to 1 Hz.;We have chosen glass-bead thermistors as the temperature sensor for feedback temperature control of the GRS. First, we created a temperature sensor design program in MATLAB that provides an optimal values of resistances in the thermistor bridge circuit for the given application. The spectral stability of the sensor achieves as low as 20 muK/ Hz at 1 mHz with a DC excitation source. The LISA thermal requirement is met by employing AC excitation and phase sensitive demodulation. Second, a passive thermal isolation system with a specially designed multilayer thermal chamber has been developed. For ground testing, the thermal specification can be met fairly readily with a massive amount of thermal mass. However, for spacecraft the thermal mass is limited, which calls for active compensation particularly in the low frequency range. In order for our test facility to simulate in-flight conditions and to compensate for solar radiation and other thermal disturbance sources we have designed it be analogous to the spacecraft structure. The temperature requirement is met to a frequency as low as 10 mHz through passive thermal isolation. Finally, to overcome the limited bandwidth of passive designs to reduce the temperature variations below 10 mHz, a model predictive control (MPC) algorithm is developed for active disturbance temperature cancellation. The system attenuates low frequency variations as low as 2 mK/ Hz at 0.1 mHz.