Plenary 1 Abstract

After almost 30 years of technological developments spearheaded by innovative institutes and companies and supported by national and international agencies, space cryogenics is now a mature engineering domain, embraced by instruments and payload designers. This state of affairs leads to a multiplication of missions in various stages of developments that require cryocooling solutions in various forms and sizes and with a vast array of specificities. It is an exciting time to be involved in space cryogenics.

After a rapid rundown of the major historical European space cryogenic missions, this talk will describe the cryogenic aspects of European missions currently in-orbit, in development or in preparation. The driving requirements will be spelled out as well as the associated baseline and alternative solutions.
Finally, the talk will lay out the current landscape of space cryogenic developments in Europe.

The Plenary Speaker: After working a few years in EADS Launch Vehicles (Paris) and CNES (Toulouse), Thierry Tirolien was hired in 2009 by the European Space Agency in the Netherlands to tackle thermal and (mainly) cryogenics matters. As the focal points in Cryogenics and Focal Plane Cooling for the Directorate of Technology, Engineering and Quality at ESA-ESTEC, he is in charge of preparing the roadmap on this subject and ensuring the smooth implementation and follow-up of the development activities. Thierry Tirolien also enjoys dealing with Cryocoolers and their side effects in the frame of the various projects that he supports (Meteosat Third Generation, ARIEL, LSTM, CO2M).