Solar Simulator Builds and Other News

6/11/2018

Solar Simulators

We have been busy in the second half of 2018 with, amongst other projects, several large simulator builds. Our Unisim Compact range of small, close-match solar simulators continue to also prove popular and our last system in stock has just shipped to the University of New South Wales.

We are continuing to work on the application of LED technology to our close-match simulators and have some interesting R&D work coming up in 2019 which will take our N-Zone solar simulator design to large area applications.

TVAC Chambers

2018 has been very busy for our thermal vacuum chambers TVAC#1 and TVAC#2 as we have conducted bakeout and TVAC cycling work for a range of customers, including quite a lot of components for the ESA Solar Orbiter mission.

We are currently designing a full IR heat shroud for TVAC#2 to be fitted in 2019. We had hoped to complete in late 2018 but demand for the chamber has meant maintenance time has been limited.

FTIR Analysis

We are excited to announce that we will be expanding our lab capabilities to include FTIR analysis via transmission and ATR in early 2019. This facility will primarily be used for analysing molecular witness plates for contamination control during vacuum bakeouts. However, we will also be offering FTIR analysis of condensables collected from our standard outgassing test. There will be further announcements via this news page and our main test facilities page when this becomes available.

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TVAC#2 Chamber Online

13/7/2018

We are pleased to announce that our second thermal vacuum test chamber, TVAC#2, is now fully tested and online. In the first week already we have managed to accommodate a last-minute test requirement for a customer and we are now pre-baking the chamber in preparation for a series of flight hardware bakeouts.

The chamber features:

PID controlled thermal plate with resistive heating and liquid channels for cooling either by chiller circulator or LN2
Cold trap with removable fascia for lab analysis if required
QCM for bakeout monitoring
Residual Gas Analyser (Hiden Analytical)
Standard 16 T-type thermocouple channels (more channels, or different TC types can be added with notice)
Temperature, pressure, QCM and RGA all logged digitally
Door seal and chamber wall fluid cooling lines for high temperature tests (>300°C)
Scroll pump and magnetically levitated turbo molecular pump meaning a completely oil-free pumping system

We also have a multi-part shroud under manufacture which will use the same resistive heating and fluid line design as the thermal plate. This is scheduled to be installed towards the end of the year when we tend to have more downtime for our test house facilities.

Aerospace Test & Validation 2018

4/6/2018

Aerospace Test & Validation

We are very proud to support the 2018 edition of Aerospace Test & Validation, the front cover of which features images from our test house. You can read the digital version here https://t.co/wP9b8Mhtq4

This is a new publication from the publishers of the Test House Directory focused specifically on the Aerospace industry. You can read the digital version here.

TS-space systems aerospace test and validation

TVAC#2 Update

We are progressing with the commissioning of our new thermal vacuum test chamber TVAC#2.

The newly designed and installed thermal interface plate, has been tested for positive temperatures. PID control software developed for this new system has also been tested and tuned to achieve a high level of thermal control and stability.

We have also Argon leak tested the system and we are currently awaiting for some custom machined parts to cure some small leaks which were discovered during this process.

We will then be conducting negative temperature control tests with LN2 before we measure and specify the thermal uniformity of the interface plate. We are currently on schedule to complete these tasks by the end of the month. Please follow our news and other feeds for further updates.

Updates To Our Privacy Policy

10/5/2018

As you are no doubt aware by the multitude of emails you will have received from every website you've ever visited, the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect on the 25/05/18. It is essentially an attempt to bring a unified set of regulations to the privacy of data collected by websites and transparency to how/why websites collect their users' data. We would like to draw your attention to the changes we have made to our website and associated policies in order to comply with these regulations.

Firstly, we would like to make clear that the only information we collect is via our Contact page and Test Quote Request form and this information is only ever used to keep a record of your enquiry, facilitate our response and, if you opted in, send the occasional newsletter. We have never and will never sell or pass on our user's data to third party companies. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information.

As stated in our Cookie Policy our side does use Google analytics cookies for monitoring site usage.

In order to comply with the upcoming GDPR regulations we have carried out the following:

We have updated our Terms and Conditions
We have updated our Privacy Policy
We have updated our Cookie Policy
All user data submitted to date via our Contact Page and Test Quote Request form have been deleted. Any new submissions via these forms must agree to the stated Terms and Conditions and actively opt-in to our newsletter. Please note that our newsletter was always an opt-in for our users, but we have concluded this is the easiest and safest way to ensure your privacy preferences are met and to avoid any contravention of the GDPR regulations.

If you have any questions or concerns about what this means with regard to your data or privacy when using our website, please feel free to contact us.

Update: Thermal Vacuum Chamber - TVAC#2

4/4/2018

The installation of our new thermal vacuum chamber is slightly behind schedule but we are still on track to start testing the vacuum and thermal control system at the end of this month. New custom flanges for the old gate valve port are in the final stages of fabrication and finishing, the scroll and mag-lev turbo molecular pumps are installed and the control systems for the thermal plate are starting testing the end of this week.

TVAC#2 has water cooled door seals and chamber walls which means it will be capable of higher maximum temperatures than TVAC#1. We are also installing a thermal plate design we developed for a customer several years ago to achieve a very uniform temperature when using LN2 for cold temperatures and dwells.

There are also further re-designs from the thermal system of TVAC#1 which will be tested in TVAC#2 and will be used to upgrade TVAC#1 in the future.

Follow this blog for future updates or keep an eye on our test house page for when TVAC#2 is fully operational.

Unisim Compact Demo Delay

5/1/2018

Please note that due to demand, our in-house Unisim Compact will not be available for demonstration over the next few weeks while we re-arrange our stock of simulator components.

If you are interested in a demonstration please feel free to contact us but please be aware there will be a delay in when we can next accommodate you. We apologise for any inconvenience.

TS-Space Systems in 2018

4/1/2018

And we're back for 2018!

We have recently taken delivery of a new vacuum chamber which we have already started work on getting it ready for commissioning. Some of the new pumps and control units have arrived and we are currently populating and wiring the control/measurement rack units. This new vacuum chamber system will be TVAC#2 and features water cooling on the chamber walls and, importantly, the door seals, which means it will be capable of higher temperature testing than TVAC#1.

We have used the down time of the chamber in the last few weeks of 2017 to further optimise the PID control for the thermal plate in TVAC#1 which means it is now capable of reaching temperature faster and with negligible overshoot. We continue to see a high demand for bakeouts on TVAC#1 and we are working quickly to get TVAC#2 up and running to help with this.

We continue to develop our solar simulators and have a couple of product enhancements planned for 2018 for both our standard Unisim close match range as well as our Unisim Compact. For a free in-house demonstration of our Unisim Compact, please feel free to contact us.

We hope you all had a good break over the Christmas holiday and look forward to working with you over the coming year.

Merry Christmas from TS-Space Systems

20/12/2017

From all of us here at TS-Space Systems, we'd like to wish a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to our customers. 2017 has been a busy year for us and we have continued to expand and invest in our product development and test house services.

We are currently awaiting delivery of a new thermal vacuum chamber (TVAC #2) which we will be fitting out with new pumping and thermal systems over the first quarter of 2018. We hope this will take some of the demand from TVAC #1 and mean we can help more of our customers who are on short deadlines for test and flight bakeouts.

Our product development is also scheduled to ramp up in 2018 to bring a new product to market which will take TS-Space Systems into new areas. Keep an eye on our website and social media for updates.

OPENING TIMES:
Please note we will be closed from 23rd December - 1st January. We will be back in on the 2nd of January 2018.

Proud to be Made In Britain

15/11/2017

TS-Space Systems is proud to announce we have joined the 'Made In Britain' community promoting British manufacturing. Supporting British manufacturing is incredibly important to us and we are keen to show this using the 'Made In Britain' marque on our products.

All of our instruments are designed and manufactured in the UK, here at TS-Space Systems. We also subcontract many specialist assembly or manufacturers for components within our products.

To read more about the 'Made In Britain' community of UK manufacturers, click the logo to the right and follow the link.

Test Your Solar Cells For Free!

6/9/2017

We are making our in-house Unisim Compact available for demonstration and testing. You are also welcome, without any obligation, to use our house Compact for a half-day to measure any of the cells on which you are currently working.

The Unisim Compact demonstration covers all of the technical aspects of our close-match solar simulators as well as:

- Changing the filters from AM0 to AM1.5 closematch spectrum
- Tuning the solar simulator spectrum
- Operating the solar simulator as an N-Zone system
- LED Boost zone software and operation
- IV Software operation
- Lamp changes
- Solar simulator Maintenance

If you would like to book a demonstration and/or measurement session please contact us.

For more information on the Unisim Compact Solar Simulator see our product pages.

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