The Twenty-Five-Foot Space Simulator is a chamber for testing spacecraft in space-like conditions, including extreme cold, high radiation, and near-vacuum pressure. Built in 1961, it is located at the

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA ...

in Pasadena, California. It has been used to prepare many American space probes for their launches, including the Ranger,

Surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is c ...

Mariner A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship. The profession of the s ...

, and Voyager spacecraft. The first facility of its type, the chamber served as an example for other countries seeking to establish space programs. and It was declared a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1985 and is on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...

Description

The Twenty-Five-Foot Space Simulator is a stainless-steel cylinder in height and in diameter. A doorway wide and high provides access for bringing test objects and equipment into the chamber; a personnel access door is built into the larger doorway. Its walls and floor are lined with cooling shrouds that help provide a controllable temperature range from to . A series of lamps, lenses, and mirrors can irradiate the chamber with a directed beam of simulated solar energy in a variety of patterns and strengths. The chamber can be depressurized to 5×10⁻⁷

torr The torr (symbol: Torr) is a unit of pressure based on an absolute scale, defined as exactly of a standard atmosphere (). Thus one torr is exactly (≈ ). Historically, one torr was intended to be the same as one "millimeter of mercur ...

. Test objects can be mounted with a number of attachment points and methods. The chamber is mounted on a seismically isolated foundation. The chamber requires about 75 minutes to achieve a space-like environment, and about 2 hours to return to a normal environment. Next to the chamber is a

clean room A cleanroom or clean room is an engineered space, which maintains a very low concentration of airborne particulates. It is well isolated, well-controlled from contamination, and actively cleansed. Such rooms are commonly needed for scientif ...

in which equipment can be prepared for testing.

References

{{authority control Jet Propulsion Laboratory National Historic Landmarks in California Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Pasadena, California Government buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in California Buildings and structures completed in 1961 Buildings and structures in Pasadena, California 1961 establishments in California

Description

See also

References