TS-Space Systems - Solar Simulators and Vacuum Testing

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December Update and News

2/12/2019

 

New TVAC Chamber TVAC#3 for 2020

We are continually looking at where we can improve our equipment and test services as well as invest in additional equipment. In 2018 our second TVAC chamber TVAC#2 came online and toward the end of that year  we purchased and and set up our in-house FTIR facility for molecular contamination monitoring (in accordnace with ECSS-Q-ST-70-05C). Throughout 2019 our existing TVAC chambers have been in high demand so we are pleased to announce that we will be commissioning our third TVAC chamber (surprisingly called TVAC#3) in early 2020. The chamber is identical to TVAC#2 in terms of size and will be configured with the same oil-less pumping system and thermal interface plate. For additional details and announcements on this system follow our news section or contact us to sign up to our newsletter.
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Offgassing Testing

We have seen an increase in requests for offgassing testing throughout this year (not to be conflated with our outgassing test services). We have developed a method which is a variation of the “Gas Accumulation Method” (J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 20(5) Sept/Oct 2002 p 1667). This test can only currently be conducted in our TVAC#1 chamber as the experiment requires a gate valve.
 
If you require offgassing testing for your sample and are interested in our services, please feel free to contact us for a discussion.

Christmas Closing Dates

This year has gone by incredibly quickly and we'd like to thank all of our customers and welcome those who have found us in 2019. We look forward to working with you in 2020 and beyond.
 
Our Christmas closing period will be from:
  • Last day 2019 - Friday 20th December
  • First day 2020 - Thursday 2nd January

We would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a very happy and productive 2020.
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August Update and News

8/8/2019

 

Custom Outgassing Chambers


​We have just shipped a custom outgassing chamber to a US customer. While our own outgassing facility is in virtually constant use, we haven't been contracted to build an outgassing test system in some time.​

The thermal, vacuum pump and valve systems are fully computer controlled with the bell jar being lifted via an electrical screw jack. This makes operating the system in terms of loading samples, pumping down and bringing the Knudsen cells to temperature extremely user friendly. We were so pleased with it we were tempted to keep it for ourselves!

If you are interested in our outgassing chamber build, or our in-house outgassing services, please feel free to get in touch.
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TVAC Testing Availability

We are lucky to have had the problem of too much work for our TVAC chambers through most of 2019. Both TVAC#1 and TVAC#2 are currently occupied, with TVAC#2 finally getting some down time for maintenance at the end of this month. TVAC#1 is currently occupied with a longer term R&D contract but is booked to be turned around immediately after.

We have upgrades for TVAC#2 currently in production, with a new cold shroud and IR mountings to improve cooling rates/min temperatures as well as reduce down time for things like IR lamp replacements. We've also increased the data feedthroughs available on the chamber which was necessary for another last-minute test, for which we were able to manufacture, clean, fit and leak test our own dual-dsub connector feedthrough in just under a week.

Latest Test House News

3/5/2019

 

FTIR Facility

We are very pleased to announce that our new FTIR facility is now available for analysing molecular contamination witness plates in accordance with ECSS-Q-ST-70-05C on site. With this we can now offer MOC plate processing on-site for bakeouts and TVAC testing (if required) which will reduce the time between pre-bake qualification of the chamber and beginning hardware bakeouts.

We also have an ATR module for the system which will serve our outgassing facility for analysis of any condensate deposited on the collection mirrors during testing (at customer request, of course).
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Outgassing ESA Certification

Last year our outgassing facility took part in the inter-laboratory comparison for ECSS-Q-ST-70-02C and in March this year we were told to anticipate an ESA certification for our outgassing facility.

We have conducted outgassing testing for over 20 years and it is an increasingly popular test we are contracted to perform. The impending ESA certification of our outgassing laboratory  is a testimony to the diligence and skill of the facility manager, Sue.

Easter Weekend Opening Hours

17/4/2019

 
We will be closing at 17:00 on 18/04/19 for the Easter bank holiday weekend. The office and test house will be open again at 08:00 23/04/19.

If you would like to contact us during this time please use our Contact page and we will get back to you as soon as we re-open.
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TVAC#1, Outgassing Charges and Other News

1/4/2019

 
We have had a very busy start to the year which is why ours news updates have been so few in the past 3 months. We are still very busy with test work (thermal vacuum bakeouts and thermal vacuum cycling) as well as building a large piece of bespoke test equipment for a new customer.

TVAC#1 has been down for maintenance longer than scheduled, primarily due to the sudden influx of test work at the beginning of the year which demanded our attention. We are now just about to begin pumping down and leak testing TVAC#1 and checking the new T/C's and heaters we have fitted. We will also be fitting a PID control unit for the IR heaters to this vacuum chamber so that it has the same capability as TVAC#2.

We have also had delays in obtaining materials required for commissioning our FTIR system for contamination monitoring during bakeouts. We now have everything in stock and will be working to get this established as soon as possible. Our first use of this will be to run blank bakes on our TVAC#1 vacuum test chamber to get it back in service. We will then be able to offer in-house FTIR analysis for contamination control for both our thermal vacuum bakeout facilities.

Finally, we have not reviewed our Outgassing (ECSS-Q-ST-70-02) facility charges for over 4 years and as such a price for this service is planned for later in the year. We will be announcing any changes via our news blog and our newsletter.

Ready to go for 2019!

3/1/2019

 
We are back and already started on 2019! We have test work running throughout January, a solar simulator in the final stages before shipping, modifications to complete for the TVAC#1 thermal vacuum test chamber and an additional premises to move some of our UV and lamp testing facilities into. It's already looking rather busy.

As always, news updates and announcements will be made on our news blog and via our twitter account, but for now we just wanted to wish all of our customers a Happy New Year and say we look forward to working with you in 2019!

A Look Back At 2018

13/12/2018

 

Test House

All of our test house services (thermal vacuum chambers, outgassing test facility and vacuum UV exposure chambers) have been incredibly busy this year. We received delivery of our new vacuum chamber TVAC#2 in the last few days of 2017 and by July 2018 the system was put to work for flight hardware bakeouts and several thermal vacuum cycling tests. TVAC#1 is currently down for maintenance and should be back online beginning of 2019.

In June we also supported the 2018 edition of 'Aerospace Test & Validation' with various images from our test house equipment and solar simulator products. ​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.

Our outgassing facility has been extremely busy also, with our facility taking part in the ESA inter-laboratory ECSS-Q-ST-70-02C outgassing quantification study in July this year.

In 2019 we will be expanding our test facilities to include FTIR capabilities. Check our news page or  follow us on Twitter for announcements on this.
aerospace test and validation TS-Space Systems
Aerospace Test & Validation - 2018 featuring TS-Space Systems cover
unisim compact solar simulator
Unisim Compact Solar Simulator - close match solar simulator for small research applications

Solar Simulators

Our solar simulator builds have also been consistent throughout the year, with several of our smaller Unisim Compact solar simulator systems shipping out. We have also had some larger system builds with custom specifications. We are also looking to at a short R&D project for our Unisim N-Zone simulators which will push their capabilities into larger working areas. The materials for this have just been delivered and will be scheduled when we start 2019.

Christmas Closing

We would like to thank all of our customers, old and new, for continuing to select our products and services in 2018 and we look forward to working with you in the future. From all of us at TS-Space Systems, we'd like to wish you a very Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year for 2019!

Last day opening 2018: Friday December 21st
First day opening 2019: Wednesday January 2nd

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.
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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.

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.
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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.
​


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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.
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