Advanced Cryogenic Insulation with reduced thermal conduction and high performance at low temperatures

Quest Thermal will study engineering options to reduce low temperature conductivity in a novel discrete spacer insulation system. Heat flux at low temperatures, such as found in new integrated cryocooler designs for cryogenic instruments and cryopropellent tanks, is significantly higher than expected. Quest will study discrete spacer design, interlayer height, spacer density and radiant barrier materials to design a novel insulation system. This new system, Low-Temperature-Optimized IMLI, could reduce solid heat conduction through the insulation 2.5-fold, significantly reducing total heat flux. This advanced insulation will reduce cryocooler loads on instruments, and help achieve near Zero Boil Off of propellants. In this Phase I, Quest will design, model, analyze, build and test two prototypes. A new concept, variable spacer density, will be studied and developed, in which the density of discrete spacers is varied, directly reducing heat conduction and increasing thermal performance. A new discrete spacer will be designed. Thermal and structural analysis will be performed. Low emissivity and increased stiffness radiant barrier materials will be studied. Benchtop testing on test samples will be done. A complete small-scale tank insulation system will be designed, built, installed on a test tank, and thermal performance measured using LN2 boiloff calorimetry. Low-Temperature-Optimized IMLI could offer immediate benefits to Artemis landers and vehicles. This new advanced thermal insulation system could be used by numerous lunar landers, rovers and transport vehicles currently in design. NASA, aerospace Primes, commercial lunar payload service hardware providers and commercial satellite providers will all benefit from this new technology and product.
Benefits: NASA space science missions such as Roman and NEOS are using IMLI. Future science missions with cryogenic instruments, such as HWO, will want to use LTO-IMLI. This new system is designed for substantially better thermal performance at low temperatures. All future missions using cryocoolers, to cool instruments or to remove heat from cryogenic propellant tanks, will want to use LTO-IMLI with significantly lower heat flux. Long duration cryopropellant storage is a critical need and technology gap, and LTO-IMLI could help new cryocooled systems achieve Zero Boil Off or near ZBO. LTO-IMLI could become the new state-of-the-art advanced thermal insulation. It would likely be used on most future Artemis missions, potentially including lunar landers, lunar rovers, lunar surface science payloads, cis-lunar transport vehicles, and ISRU surface liquefaction and storage. Commercial space customers are adopting IMLI for lunar landers, lunar rovers, GEO telecom satellites and new spacecraft platforms, with numerous projects in early design. LTO-IMLI is an advanced thermal insulation with better performance, and could benefit these customers and applications. CLPS hardware providers could benefit from lower heat and lower mass. Commercial satellite providers could benefit from using ITO-IMLI over netting-MLI. Non-aerospace customers designing liquid hydrogen storage for aircraft, vehicles, and infrastructure such as stationary depots could benefit from low boil off losses. Other cryogenic storage applications, such as LNG, might also benefit from ITO-IMLI’s very low heat flux and reduced boil off losses.