ECLSS Thermal-Vacuum Qualification Chamber

Test Rig Controls

Pump speed S 180 L/s

Thermal ramp rate 5 °C/min

Thermal swing (± from 22°C) 45 °C

Time acceleration 60×

Chamber State

Phase: IDLE · Cycle 0 / 3

Chamber pressure

1013 mbar

Article temperature

22.0 °C

Scrubber efficiency

97.0 %

Elapsed test time

00:00:00

How it works

A qualification test article never gets a functional check alone — it has to survive the environment first. This rig reproduces the two governing equations of a real thermal-vacuum (TVAC) test:

Pump-down:  dP/dt = −(S/V)·P + Q_out(t)
Thermal:    dT/dt = (P_heat − P_cool − k·(T − T_wall)) / C

Chamber volume V and thermal mass C are fixed for this rig; S is your pump speed, and Q_out is outgassing that decays exponentially as trapped gas is depleted. The test article's simulated CO2-scrubber efficiency stays near its 97% nominal only inside a 10–35 °C sorbent-bed band — push the thermal swing wide enough, or ramp fast enough to overshoot, and efficiency degrades toward hardware failure.

Pump speed — how fast the chamber reaches vacuum; too slow and the hot/cold soak never gets a clean environment.
Thermal ramp rate — how quickly temperature is driven between hot and cold soak setpoints, exactly like a real TVAC profile.
Thermal swing — how far hot/cold setpoints sit from the 22 °C ambient baseline; wider swings stress the hardware harder.
Start Test — runs the qualification sequence: pump-down → hot soak → ramp → cold soak → ramp → repeat for 3 cycles, then verdict.

Pass requires the chamber to hold vacuum below 1×10⁻³ mbar during every soak and scrubber efficiency to stay above 60% throughout — the same two failure modes (leak-tight seals, sorbent thermal tolerance) that fail real ECLSS hardware in acceptance testing.

Gas molecules (density = pressure) Test article (hot) Test article (cold)

⚠ Couldn't load the 3D engineThree.js failed to load from the CDN. Check your connection and reload.