A Leap for Space Exploration

University of Arizona Unveils Epic New Thermal Vacuum Chamber

By Tom Leyde

It’s 30 feet long, weighs 80,000 pounds, was found on eBay and represents a giant step in space exploration at the University of Arizona.

The largest thermal vacuum chamber at any university in the world was introduced to the public Oct. 3 at the UA’s Applied Research Building, which was built around the chamber.

Curtains were raised revealing the TVAC, positioned behind large glass windows on the first floor of the new $85 million building. The chamber will simulate the temperature and pressure of a space environment.

“Anytime you send anything into space or to the stratosphere … such as orbiting a telescope, going to a venue or other planets, you have to test it in the environment it’s going to be in,” said Erika Hamden, director of the Arizona Space Institute and associate professor of astrophysics at Steward Observatory. “Because If you send it up there and it doesn’t work, you’re kind of out of luck.”

NASA and big aerospace companies have their own TVACs. The UA has had small ones, which meant packing any larger space instruments and shipping them out of state or out of country to test. 

“We build so many instruments, now we can just do it (test them) here,” she said, adding that it streamlines the process for UA. Also, it’s a resource for other academic partners and outside groups that may want to use the equipment.

“It’s going to foster workforce development for decades to come,” Hamden said. “It’s going to also provide a sense of reliability and technical capability. … It presents a vision of … a nicer way of doing research.”

The TVAC can hold objects as large as a pickup truck and can perform tests ranging from a day to two weeks. Its capabilities mimic deep space with fluctuating pressure and the ability to cool to the temperature of liquid nitrogen at -315 degrees Fahrenheit. 

The UA’s new TVAC was built by Northrup Grumman, which built the lunar lander for the Apollo missions. The company used the TVAC for about 20 years in Long Island, N.Y., then decommissioned it. 

A surplus scientific hardware vendor bought the TVAC and posted it on eBay, listing it as a do-it-yourself bomb shelter. “I’ve seen the inside of it. It would be really grim as a bomb shelter. I wouldn’t want to live in that,” Hamden said.

UA representatives located the TVAC in a warehouse outside of Newark, N.J, said Brian Duffy, research manager at Steward Observatory. “We decided we can do something with this.”

That was about the time the COVID-19 pandemic began, and the TVAC began an arduous journey to Tucson. The cost with shipping was $1 million. “Some of the (Applied Research Building) architects, their eyes lit up when they saw this steampunk-looking thing,” Duffy recalled. “This has been the singlemost gratifying project that I’ve worked on in 20 years.”

After arriving in Tucson, university scientists took it apart and re-engineered it for use here. “We actually did a pretty good job of refurbishing it,” said Ruben Dominguez, senior mechanical engineer at Steward Observatory. “It’s a big piece of metal.”

The TVAC is now the centerpiece of the award-winning three-story, 89,000-square-foot ARC, one of UA’s three new buildings. The ARC was built as a partnership between integrated design firm SmithGroup and contractor McCarthy Building Companies. It connects faculty and students across four colleges and eight departments.

Besides the TVAC, the building features high payload assembly areas for building high-altitude stratosphere balloons and nanosatellites; a non-reflective echo-free room to test antennae for command, control and data relay purposes; a large, dynamic testing lab for testing the performance of such objects as airplane wings and sensors; clean rooms and laboratories.

There also is a shaking device that simulates earthquakes and the launching of space vehicles.

“You come into this building and it’s beautiful and is a really nice space to be in …,” Hamden said. “I really appreciate all the attention to detail and care that went into designing this. You never see a TVAC chamber in a research building. They’re always hidden in a corner or in a dank, dark room. I love that this … highly technical work is showcased here.”