Fatigue stress detection of VIRTIS cryocoolers on board Rosetta
Abstract
Rosetta is a planetary cornerstone mission of the European Space Agency (ESA). It is devoted to the study of minor bodies of our solar system and it will be the first mission ever to land on a comet (the Jupiter-family comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko). VIRTIS-M is a sophisticated imaging spectrometer that combines two data channels in one compact instrument, respectively for the visible and the infrared range (0.25-5.0 μm). VIRTIS-H is devoted to infrared spectroscopy (2.5-5.0 μm) with high spectral resolution. Since the satellite will be inside the tail of the comet during one of the most important phases of the mission, it would not be appropriate to use a passive cooling system, due to the high flux of contaminants on the radiator. Therefore the IR sensors are cooled by two Stirling cycle cryocoolers produced by RICOR. Since RICOR operated life tests only on ground, it was decided to conduct an analysis on VIRTIS onboard Rosetta telemetries with the purpose of study possible differences in the cryocooler performancies. The analysis led to the conclusion that cryocoolers, when operating on board, are subject to a fatigue stress not present in the on ground life tests. The telemetries analysis shows a cyclic variation in cryocooler rotor angular velocity when -M or -H or both channel are operating (it has been also noted an influence of -M channel operations in -H cryocooler rotor angular velocity and vice versa) with frequencies mostly linked to operational parameters values. The frequencies have been calculated for each mission observation applying the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). In order to evaluate possible hedge effects it has been also applied the Hanning window to compare the results. For a more complete evaluation of cryocoolers fatigue stress, for each mission observation the angular acceleration and the angular jerk have been calculated.
- Publication:
-
40th COSPAR Scientific Assembly
- Pub Date:
- 2014
- Bibcode:
- 2014cosp...40E1006G