According to the global aerospace community, Cryogenic Fluid Management (CFM) has and will continue to play an essential role in enabling and developing technology in many areas, including propulsion both in-space and commercial, life support systems, fuel cells, cooling, refrigeration, liquefaction, and in-space resource utilization systems.
The challenge thus arises to develop technology that is flexible, broad based, and applicable to multiple missions. While certain CFM technology has existed for decades, and while cryogenics in general has gained traction in the last decade, several key problems remain. At NASA, CFM is now an integral part of all four mission directorates, including Human Exploration, Space Technology, Space, and Aeronautics.
This presentation will cover the core CFM technologies, and recent CFM research and technology development conducted at NASA Glenn across the four Mission Directorates. But the emphasis of the talk will be on the open challenges and how research at the university level could contribute towards addressing these open challenges.
