Liquid oxygen is to be stored on the service module of NASA’s new Orion Spacecraft (NASA, “Orion Quick Facts,” FS-2014-08-004-JSC, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX)* in a spherical stainless steel container. The service module is depicted in the figure below (note the various spherical containers shown), and the entire Orion Spacecraft is shown later in Fig. 3.1 (Chapter 3). The container has an outside diameter of 1.0 m and a wall thickness of 10 mm. The boiling point of liquid oxygen is 90 K, and its latent heat is 213 kJ/kg. The tank is to be installed in the service module where the temperature is 225 K and the loss of oxygen from the container is not to exceed 1.0 kg/day. To ensure this, determine the thermal conductivity of the spherical insulation material that should be used if its thickness were to be limited to 5 mm.

Data from in Fig. 3.1

Transcribed Image Text:

Source: NASA THI