A 50W@170K pulse tube cryocooler used in wide-field survey telescope

Abstract

In this paper, a pulse tube cryocooler used in a wide-field survey telescope is described, this telescope is going to be launched in 2020 in China. And in the telescope, large focal plane array (FPA) detectors working at 188K generate 100W heat which need to be cooled. In order to cool the detectors, three 50W@170K pulse tube cryocoolers are used, with designed life-time of l0 years. To decrease the vibration and electromagnetic interference to the detectors to the minimal limit, two cryogenic loop heat pipes (LHPs) are used to transfer heat from the detectors to the cold tips of the pulse tube cryocoolers. And each cold tip is specified to match the condensers of the LHPs. The cryolooer is driven by a dual-opposed piston compressor with a pair of moving magnet linear motors, one of the motors is also used as the adaptive active vibration suppressor. The cryocooler reaches 16.6% Carnot efficiency at cooling power of 50W@170K with 230Wac input power.