The Pre-Regulator financed by the "Universidad De Granada"
The Univeristy of Granada is financially involved
in the Planck mission, and more precisely in the High Frequency
Instrument (HFI) of the satellite.
The heart of this instrument is an array of sensors which needs to be kept
at an extremely low temperature (0.1 K), to be able to detect the faint
microwave background signal. This extreme temperature is reached with a
four-stage cooler, first cooling at 18K, then to 4K, 1.6K and finally at 0.1K.
The instantaneous peak power demand of cooler subsystems ranges within
3 to 5 times their average consumption (i.e. up to 500W peak). This represents
a potential integration risk for the power subsystem and for the quality
of the power delivered, as the cooler subsystem is a significant contributor
within the Spacecraft power budget.
The solution is to have a Pre-Regulator
to stabilize the input current to
the cooler, with negligible effects on mass and electrical consumption of the
instrument.
This is the device that the University of Granada is financing and
managing, through the spanish engineering firm Crisa.
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© 2005 Galactic Astrophysics Group UGR (webman  ) |
