The LSST Camera 500 watt -130 degC Mixed Refrigerant Cooling System
- SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
- MMR-Technologies, Mountain View, CA (United States)
The LSST Camera has a higher cryogenic heat load than previous CCD telescope cameras due to its large size (634 mm diameter focal plane, 3.2 Giga pixels) and its close coupled front-end electronics operating at low temperature inside the cryostat. Various refrigeration technologies are considered for this telescope/camera environment. MMR-Technology’s Mixed Refrigerant technology was chosen. A collaboration with that company was started in 2009. The system, based on a cluster of Joule-Thomson refrigerators running a special blend of mixed refrigerants is described. Both the advantages and problems of applying this technology to telescope camera refrigeration are discussed. Test results from a prototype refrigerator running in a realistic telescope configuration are reported. Current and future stages of the development program are described. (auth)
- Research Organization:
- SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Science Foundation (NSF)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-76SF00515
- OSTI ID:
- 1132852
- Report Number(s):
- SLAC-PUB-15965
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Contributed to SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, Montreal, Canada, June 22 - 27, 2014
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Design and development of the 3.2 gigapixel camera for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
The LSST Camera Overview