Since 1987, Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd. (SHI) has developed small Stirling coolers of two types and two Joule–Thomson (JT) coolers with operating temperatures ranging from 80 K to 1 K for space use. Ground lifetime tests of four coolers were conducted to demonstrate their long life and reliability. A single-stage Stirling cooler was tested for 113,640 hr. Two single-stage Stirling coolers were tested for 108,370 and 104,771 hr. Also, a two-stage Stirling cooler was tested for 72,906 hr. An advanced 4¶K cooler with 4 He was tested for over 36,140 hr. Also, a 1¶K-class cooler with 3 He was tested for 6721 hr from last year. All of these coolers, except for the 1¶K-class cooler, have shown good results on orbit. Three single-stage Stirling coolers were carried on the “SUZAKU” Xray astronomical satellite, the “KAGUYA” Japanese lunar polar orbiter, and the “AKATSUKI” Japanese Venus Climate Orbiter. Two units of a two-stage Stirling cooler were carried on the “AKARI” infrared astronomical satellite. Moreover, a 4 K cooler was carried on the Superconducting Submillimeter-Wave Limb-Emission Sounder (SMILES) aboard the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) of the International Space Station (ISS). A Japanese X-ray astronomy satellite “ASTROH (Hitomi)” including a 4 K cooler, two sets of two-stage Stirling coolers, and two sets of singlestage coolers was launched on February 17, 2016. This report describes the updated results and operating status from an earlier report 1 of ground lifetime testing and achievements on orbit of SHI coolers for space use.
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