GLACIER (General Laboratory Active Cryogenic ISS Experiment Refrigerator) was designed and developed by

University of Alabama at Birmingham The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) is a Public university#United States, public List of research universities in the United States, research university in Birmingham, Alabama. Developed from an academic extension center established i ...

(UAB) Center for Biophysical Sciences and Engineering (CBSE) for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

Cold Stowage. Glacier was originally designed for use on board the

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...

, but is now used for storing scientific samples on

ISS The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (J ...

in the EXpedite the PRocessing of Experiments to Space Station (EXPRESS) rack, and transporting samples to/from orbit via the

SpaceX Dragon American private space transportation company SpaceX has developed and produced several spacecraft named Dragon. The first family member, now referred to as Dragon 1, flew 23 cargo missions to the ISS between 2010 and 2020 before being retired ...

Cygnus spacecraft Cygnus is an expendable American cargo spacecraft developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation and now manufactured and launched by Northrop Grumman Space Systems as part of NASA's Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program. It is launched by North ...

. GLACIER is a double middeck locker equivalent payload designed to provide thermal control between +4 °C and -160 °C.

Development

In 2002 NASA began development of several spaceflight cold stowage systems to work in conjunction with the large (ISS Rack sized) ESA MELFI and Cryosystem freezers. One of these was for a system capable of rapidly freezing bagged irregularly shaped science samples to below -160ºC in as fast as 1ºC/min for a 100ml sample, being able to maintain a complement of frozen samples without electrical power for several hours, and to be of a compact double middeck locker format, to enable transfer between the ISS and the Space Shuttle Orbiter cabin for transport to/from orbit. The combination of these goals presented several significant technical challenges, and prompted NASA to implement a two-phase development approach. In the first phase, two competing designs were matured through Preliminary Design Review (PDR) and completed functional demonstration of key freezer components. In the second phase one of the designs was then developed through to the completed flight freezers. NASA awarded a contract to UAB CBSE to build the GLACIER freezer system in 2005. The first GLACIER freezers flew on STS-126 in 2008.

Description

*GLACIER can use air or water to reject heat depending on the temperatures required for the scientific samples. *GLACIER can maintain temperatures from +4 to -95 °C using only air cooling, and can cool to -160 °C when connected to the water supply. *GLACIER's pump creates a low

vacuum A vacuum is a space devoid of matter. The word is derived from the Latin adjective ''vacuus'' for "vacant" or "void". An approximation to such vacuum is a region with a gaseous pressure much less than atmospheric pressure. Physicists often dis ...

within the cool box in order to improve electrical and cooling efficiency. *GLACIER can accommodate up to 36 lb of sample mass. NASA.gov
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Additional Cold Storage

GLACIER is one of multiple units available for storage on the

and/or transportation to and from the

. *

Minus Eighty Degree Laboratory Freezer for ISS The Minus Eighty-Degree Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI) is a European-built experiment storage freezer for the International Space Station. It comprises four independent dewars which can be set to operate at different temperatures. Currently tem ...

(MELFI) ** +4 °C to -80 °C *

MERLIN (Microgravity Experiment Research Locker/ Incubator) Microgravity Experiment Research Locker/Incubator (MERLIN) was designed by University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Center for Biophysical Sciences and Engineering (CBSE) to operate as a hardmounted, single middeck locker equivalent within the ISS ...

** +48 °C to -20 °C *

Polar (Research Refrigerator for ISS) Polar is a research refrigerator designed and developed by University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Center for Biophysical Sciences and Engineering (CBSE) for NASA Cold Stowage. Polar was designed as a single mid-deck locker equivalent payload to ...

** +4 °C to -95 °C

References

{{Reflist Cryogenics University of Alabama at Birmingham Cooling technology

Development

Description

Additional Cold Storage

See also

References