NASA has sent a wax-based heat exchanger technology to the International Space Station through SpaceX‘s Dragon cargo resupply spacecraft that launched Monday from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The agency said Thursday it developed the Phase Change Material Heat Exchanger with United Technologies Corp. for testing onboard the orbiting laboratory as part of the agency’s Game Changing Development initiative.
PCM HX is designed to thaw and reject energy from space to help sustain temperatures inside a spacecraft and protect personnel and equipment, according to NASA.
“It gets really hot when the spacecraft is between the sun and the moon,†said Rubik Sheth, a project manager and thermal systems engineer at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
“We need these phase change material heat exchangers to absorb the excess waste energy that Orion will take in,” Sheth added.
NASA said the Dragon spacecraft that carries 5,000 pounds of cargo reached the ISS early Wednesday and the station’s crew members have begun to unload science, research and hardware from the vehicle.
