Cryogenic fluid transfer for exploration

Performance comparison between no-vent and vented fills in vertical thermal-insulated cryogenic cylinders

“…As a conventional method for filling, vented fill is widely applied in industrial applications. However, if it is used in outer space, the vapor may not vent since the position of the vent opening relative to the vapor cannot be predicted [1,2]. In addition, most of the cryogens are either dangerous or rare.…”

Inferential framework for two-fluid model of cryogenic chilldown

“…Autonomous management of two-phase cryogenic flows is a subject of great interest to many spacefarers including effective human exploration of the Solar System [1][2][3]. It requires development of models that can recognize and predict cryogenic fluid dynamics on-line regime in nominal and faulty flow regimes without human interaction.…”

“…To address these and other mission critical issues NASA has developed and implemented an impressive program of research, see e.g. [1,2,25,26], that resulted in emergence of space based fluid management technologies.…”

Hierarchy of two-phase flow models for autonomous control of cryogenic loading operation

“…The homogeneous model of the two-phase flow can be obtained from the SM by summing pairwise conservation equations (1), (2), and (3) under the assumption that in the two-phase region both …”

“…The human exploration beyond low Earth orbit requires development of a new suite of cryogenic fluid management technologies [1,2] including autonomous cryogens transfer and settling, active thermal control and positioning of cryogens in the tanks, on-line health management and control. As an important step towards future sustainable and reliable space exploration NASA is developing and maturating technologies and advanced cryogenic hardware for autonomous integrated health management (IHM) and control of ground launch operations [3].…”