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Refurbishment of NASA's Johnson Space Center Liquid Nitrogen Bulk Storage Tanks in Preparation for Thermal Vacuum Optical Testing of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)NASA is the mission lead for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the next of the "Great Observatories", scheduled for launch in 2019. It is directly responsible for the integration and test (I&T) program that culminated in an end-to-end cryo vacuum optical test of the flight telescope and instrument module in Chamber A at NASA Johnson Space Center. Historic Chamber A is the largest thermal vacuum chamber at Johnson Space Center and one of the largest space simulation chambers in the world. Chamber A has undergone a major modernization effort to support the deep cryogenic, vacuum and cleanliness requirements for testing the JWST. Chamber A utilizes Liquid Nitrogen as a thermal barrier between the 300 Kelvin vessel wall and the 20 Kelvin helium environmental conditioning shrouds. The 155,000 gallon capacity of the six vessels support long duration testing which support low and deep space simulations for today's testing. This paper describe the challenges of refurbishing six liquid nitrogen bulk storage vessels that are 60 year old. The vessels were refurbished in place and focused primarily on the vacuum annulus. The challenges of vessel research, design engineering and project management will be discussed. The refurbishment of the vessels has extended the life of the vessels for another 35-50 years on the vacuum annulus integrity. The survivability of the bulk storage vessels was tested during the historic hurricane Harvey of 2017 during the 100 day JWST thermal-vacuum test.
Document ID
20180007817
Acquisition Source
Johnson Space Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Garcia, Sammy
(Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc. Houston, TX, United States)
Homan, Jonathan
(NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Date Acquired
November 21, 2018
Publication Date
November 5, 2018
Subject Category
Spacecraft Design, Testing And Performance
Report/Patent Number
JSC-E-DAA-TN61922-1
Report Number: JSC-E-DAA-TN61922-1
Meeting Information
Meeting: Space Simulation Conference
Location: Annapolis, MD
Country: United States
Start Date: November 5, 2018
End Date: November 8, 2018
Sponsors: Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology (IEST)
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNJ13HA01C
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.
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