Taiyo Nippon Sanso (TNSC) has attained a total supply of 71 chambers for the “Space Simulation” which is one of its main products in the space and cryogenic machinery business.

With the anticipated expansion of the domestic demand or export backed by the space industry promotion program of the Government, TNSC has a policy to enliven further its activities to obtain orders for the product in the future.

The space simulation chamber which the company is deploying now can be referred to as “a room to simulate on the earth all space environments other than the gravity.”

The universe is an evacuated, cryogenic and dark world. The artificial satellite which is compelled to work for several decades naturally is exposed to severe conditions. The chamber is utilized to examine the durability properties of the satellite itself or its main parts and components like engine and robot arms.

The comprising components include a vacuum vessel called Shroud, a turbo-molecular pump, a helium compressor, a liquid nitrogen container and a PC data collector. The core shroud is a cylindrical structure made of stainless steel, having an internal wall coated fully in pitch-black with a special paint to feature a dark world.

A spiral pipeline of liquid nitrogen is laid throughout inside the shroud structure. Liquid nitrogen is circulated using fins to this pipeline to generate cold energy of 77K(-196℃).

The chamber is evacuated at first by vacuum pump to make the inside condition of shroud at 1.33×10－5Pa. Then, liquid nitrogen is circulated to create a cryogenic environment of 77K. This simulates the outer space.

TNSC has been accumulating its supply record and technical know-how of the chamber since it shipped the first machine to AIST (the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) in 1965.

TNSC also engaged in the shroud of the largest domestic chamber (⏀13m×16m) which Hitachi supplied to JAXA’s Tsukuba Space Center. In the durability test of the planetary exploration spacecraft “Hayabusa” which has recently been talked about, TNSC’s chamber has also been adopted in full scale in JAXA Space Science Center.