Successful return of the low temperature platform facility (LTPF) to space

摘要

The Low Temperature Platform Facility (LTPF) flew on STS-87 from November 19 to December 5, 1997 as part of the fourth United States Microgravity Payload (USMP-4). During this flight, the LTPF contained the Confined Helium experiment (CHeX). The CHeX mission was a success because the LTPF functioned as expected, and the LTPF dewar provided a stable, long lived cooling source for the CHeX instrument. The LTPF is a NASA/JPL facility that is designed to accommodate space shuttle based science experiments or instruments that need cryogenic temperatures near 2 K. The LTPF had flown two times prior to this most recent flight: in 1984 as the Superfluid Helium Experiment on Space Lab-2 and in 1992 as the Lambda Point Experiment (LPE) on USMP-1. The facility has been substantially upgraded between every flight. For the CHeX mission, the improvements to the facility were driven by the need to meet updated Space Shuttle requirements and by the desire to increase the scientific return from the mission. These improvements involved changes to both the cryostat and the facility electronics. We report on the flight performance of the LTPF during the most recent mission (CHeX) and on some of the lessons learned while preparing for this mission.