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METIS is the 'Mid-infrared ELT Imager and Spectrograph' for the European Extremely Large Telescope. This E-ELT instrument will cover the thermal/mid-infrared wavelength range from 3 to 14 μm and will require cryogenic cooling of detectors and optics. We present a vibration-free cooling technology for this instrument based on sorption coolers developed at the University of Twente in collaboration with Dutch Space. In the baseline design, the instrument has four temperature levels: N-band: detector at 8 K and optics at 25 K; L/M-band: detector at 40K and optics at 77 K. The latter temperature is established by a liquid nitrogen supply with adequate cooling power. The cooling powers required at the lower three levels are 0.4 W, 1.1 W, and 1.4 W, respectively. The cryogenic cooling technology that we propose uses a compressor based on the cyclic adsorption and desorption of a working gas on a sorber material such as activated carbon. Under desorption, a high pressure can be established. When expanding the high-pressure fluid over a flow restriction, cooling is obtained. The big advantage of this cooling technology is that, apart from passive valves, it contains no moving parts and, therefore, generates no vibrations. This, obviously, is highly attractive in sensitive, high-performance optical systems. A further advantage is the high temperature stability down to the mK level. In a Dutch national research program we aim to develop a cooler demonstrator for METIS. In the paper we will describe our cooler technology and discuss the developments towards the METIS cooler demonstrator.

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Abstract. METIS is the 'Mid-infrared ELT Imager and Spectrograph' for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) that will cover the thermal/mid-infrared wavelength range from 3 -14 micron, and requires cryogenic cooling of detectors and optics. A vibration-free cooling technology for this instrument based on sorption coolers is developed at the University of Twente in collaboration with Dutch Space. In the baseline design, the instrument has four temperature levels: N-band: detector at 8 K and optics at 25 K; L/M-band: detector at 40 K and optics at 70 K. The latter temperature level is established by a pumped-liquid nitrogen line. The cooling powers required at the lower three levels are 0.4 W, 1.1 W, and 1.4 W, respectively. We propose a vibration-free sorption-based cooler with three cascaded Joule-Thomson (JT) coolers of which the sorption compressors are all heat sunk at the 70 K platform. A helium-operated cooler is used to obtain the 8 K level with a cooling power of 0.4 W. Here, three pre-cooling stages are used at 40 K, 25 K and 15 K. The latter two levels are provided by a hydrogen-based cooler, whereas the 40 K level is realized by a neon-based sorption cooler. In the paper, we present the preliminary design of this threestage cooler and we discuss the developments towards a demonstrator version of this METIS cooler.

Passive cooling has shown to be a very dependable cryogenic cooling method for space missions. Several missions employ passive radiators to cool down their delicate sensor systems for many years, without consuming power, without exporting vibrations or producing electromagnetic interference. So for a number of applications, passive cooling is a good choice. At lower temperatures, the passive coolers run into limitations that prohibit accommodation on a spacecraft. The approach to this issue has been to find a technology able to supplement passive cooling for lower temperatures, which maintains as much as possible of the advantages of passive coolers. Sorption cooling employs a closed cycle Joule-Thomson expansion process to achieve the cooling effect. Sorption cells perform the compression phase in this cycle. At a low temperature and pressure, these cells adsorb the working fluid. At a higher temperature they desorb the fluid and thus produce a high-pressure flow to the expander in the cold stage. The sorption process selected for this application is of the physical type, which is completely reversible. It does not suffer from degradation as is the case with chemical sorption of, e.g., hydrogen in metal hydrides. Sorption coolers include no moving parts except for some check valves, they export neither mechanical vibrations nor electromagnetic interference, and are potentially very dependable due to their simplicity. The required cooling temperature determines the type of working fluid to be applied. Sorption coolers can be used in conjunction with passive cooling for heat rejection at different levels. This paper starts with a brief discussion on applications of passive coolers in different types of orbits and on the limitations of passive cooling for lower cooling temperatures. Next, the working principle of sorption cooling is summarized. The DARWIN mission is chosen as an example application of sorption and passive cooling and special attention is paid to the reduction of the radiator area needed by the sorption cooler. The application field of this type of sorption cooling in space missions is currently being expanded by examining the performance of alternative working fluids, suitable for different cooling temperatures.