Team Toronto (plus Don) spent yesterday conducting a Bemco (thermal/vacuum) test.This mainly involves waiting around while temperatures or pressures change very slowly. And occasionally making sure nothing has broken. As such, I took occasional sanity breaks and visited everybody else.
The cryo team had finished with the telescope inserts and was closing up the vapour cooled shields (VCS). These are shells within the cryostat cooled by helium boil-off and insulated with many layers of aluminized mylar (aka MLI: multi-layer insulation).
Bemco, ready to close
Power wiring
After having gone through the vacuum bulkhead
Bemco in progress
Looking through the window. The chamber's a float pressure now (0.5% atmosphere)
Important gadget
Once under vacuum, this highly calibrated piece of scrap metal holds the latch open. Then when pressure builds, the door will open rather than the chamber exploding
Don fixing a computer
It needs a fiber optics card replaced
Becky cleaning
All of the cryostat parts need cleaning before insertion
Anne doesn't think that cleaning, taping, and bolting are "science"
The science sign disagrees
Johanna and Becky covering the center hole of the shield
Spanky
Sasha finishes up the back of the cryostat
Fully loaded Spider
Actually, one of the inserts is a lie. Can you spot which one?
Ziggy, double thumbs-up
Flexible heat straps
Providing 4K and 1.4K to each insert
Complete back of one insert
Jon documenting
Presumably in a studied manner, not my ignorant snapping
Kevlar straps
To catch the tank if things break when the payload lands
Center tube
Used for wiring
Outer edge of the cryostat
Contains multi-layer insulation ("MLI", many layers of shiny aluminized mylar) and cables
The capillary
Transports liquid helium between the main tank and the superfluid tank
Sasha tapes the edges of a filter stack
The filters reflect unwanted light, to prevent it from warming the cryostat
The stack. Stacked
Reflections of overhead lights in the filter
The surface is a finely-patterned metal mesh. You can distinguish filters by their reflection pattern
Reflections of overhead lights in the filter
The surface is a finely-patterned metal mesh. You can distinguish filters by their reflection pattern
Top of cryostat
With metal base of vapour-cooled shield (VCS) (cooled by boiling helium vapour)
Group action shot
At the VCS on the bottom
Anne and the VCS
Preparing to install the MLI layer
Very flattened bug
Found on crane cable
Applying MLI to the top VCS
MLI'd and filtered top
The state at the end of the day
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