High-Temp Electronics For Venus Exploration, recent advances |
High-Temp Electronics For Venus Exploration, recent advances |
Mar 13 2013, 03:36 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 127 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 291 |
(MOD NOTE: Started a new topic for this discussion to continue. Please remember the 'no sci-fi engineering' provision of rule 1.9. Have fun!)
Also, since I'm thinking about surface operations on Venus, the state-of-the-art in high temperature electronics has advanced quite far in the past decade. Its now possible to buy off the shelf chips from vendors designed to operate at the 250-300 C range. Meanwhile basic functionality has been tested at and beyond the temperatures needed for long-term surface operations on Venus: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/SiC/ http://www.gizmag.com/extreme-silicon-carb...ctronics/16410/ http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/SiC/publicatio...Contact2010.pdf Another decade or so and a long-term Venus lander could be possible with (practically) off the shelf electronics! |
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Apr 8 2013, 05:43 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 903 Joined: 30-January 05 Member No.: 162 |
Don't know specifically about vacuum tube cameras (iconosocope I believe is the archaic term, LOL) in high heat, but vacuum tubes in general have a problem with high temperatures, surprisingly enough.
Despite the vacuum tube cathodes being strongly heated during operation (and that's why we used to wait for things to warm up before they would work), the anodes (which tubes need too) cannot be too hot. Going back 40 years in my schooling, I think the problem is secondary emission at high temp on the anode. The tube won't work right (or at all) if the anode is as hot as the cathode, and performance decreases as the temperature difference between anode and cathode decreases. Solid state electronics as noted above are the best bet. Amazing the advances they have made in this regard. A camera at these temperatures, even neglecting the electronics, is a fussy thing. having it stay in focus when that hot since the housing will likely expand and move everything. Lens coatings, seals, chemical attack from the corrosive atmosphere, etc. this is a tough challenge all the way around. You'd also not want too much IR sensitivity in the image pickup or it would be swamped with it!! |
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