The proposed cryocooler is compact, efficient, and lightweight, making it ideal as the cold stage of a multi-stage thermal management system. Military applications for this cooling system include space-based surveillance and missile defense, and high-bandwidth, superconducting communication devices. Commercial applications include cooling for communication satellites, superconducting circuits, and cryogenic computers. The successful completion of this program will provide mission planners with an extremely high performance, lightweight, and compact cryocooler that can meet requirements for multiple missions. The cryocooler is reliable, emits no vibration, and can be used for remote and distributed cooling. The latter feature is expected to reduce size, mass, and costs of the overall payload. The primary application will be for cooling detectors, sensors, shields, and telescopes for space science missions. NASA applications include future astronomical observatories utilizing infrared, far infrared, submillimeter, and X-ray detectors, such as the Wide Field Infrared Survey telescope (WFIRST), Single Aperture Far-IR (SAFIR) telescope, Space Infrared Interferometric Telescope (SPIRIT), Submillimeter Probe of the Evolution of Cosmic Structure (SPECS), and the International X-Ray Observatory (IXO).
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