Bearing Starting Torque Measurements Down to –100°C

Starting torque was measured for three different bearings from 0°C down to 90°C and 100°C. These are bearings of the type that will be used in the ice-penetrating radar instrument named Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface (REASON), which is part of the planned science instrument suite for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Europa Clipper mission. This space science mission to Jupiter’s moon, Europa, is being led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is administered for NASA by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). In addition to presenting the starting torque measurements at various temperatures, this paper will describe the small test chamber and attachments that allowed the measurements to be made using an existing bearing torque testing machine.