Liquid Nitrogen Testing of ISRU Liquefaction Methods in Unsteady Applications

To enable NASA’s planned long duration missions, the agency is putting emphasis on reusable cryogenic systems. Such systems will require replenishing of cryogens on-orbit via a cryogenic tanker or refueling depot, and potentially on the lunar or Martian surfaces with the utilization of in-situ resources. Surface replenishing requires the in-situ production of gaseous oxygen (and hydrogen if on the lunar surface), followed by liquefaction and storage. Funded by NASA’s Advanced Exploration Systems, and managed under the Advanced Cis-Lunar Space Capability Project, the Cryogenic Fluid In-Situ Liquefaction for Landers (CryoFILL) multi center team was formed to develop a liquefaction and storage system that is efficient, reliable and scalable. This presentation will demonstrate the liquefaction and storage of “In-Situ like” propellant via a Tube-On-Tank Heat Exchanger integrated with Active Cooling (cryocooler) (verify proof of concept and obtain relevant data for model validation) and gather lessons learned from “brassboard” testing which will be applied to future liquefaction system prototype testing, then eventually to an end-to-end demonstration.