›26th Space Cryogenics Workshop

NASA Glenn Research Center announces the 26th Space Cryogenics Workshop will be held June 24-26, 2015, in Phoenix, Arizona. All aspects of space cryogenics will be represented, with emphasis on those related to space exploration. Workshop participants representing industry, academia and government will share their expertise through presentations and technical papers. Several invited papers will be solicited in the areas of systems and technologies needed for exploration of space.

The workshop, which has been a Division of the Cryogenic Society of America since 2000, originated in 1980 as a one-topical-day event within the International Cryogenic Engineering Conference. Starting in 1983, it has been hosted every two years in the United States, in conjunction with the Cryogenic Engineering Conference/International Cryogenic Materials Conference, usually in a venue near to, but not in the same city as the larger conference.

Co-chairs are David Plachta and Jason Hartwig, both of NASA Glenn Research Center. Mark Kimball, of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, serves as Awards Committee Chair.

In 2013 representatives from 18 countries participated in the workshop.

Dr. Peter Shirron of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center comments on the 2013 Space Cryogenics Workshop in Cold Facts magazine, “From its beginning in the early 1980s, the workshop, now sponsored and hosted by the Cryogenic Society of America, has become the premier forum for the space cryogenics community for discussing technologies, issues, mission opportunities, etc., that are relevant to space cryogenics. The technical program covers the range from early technology development through successful operation of instruments in space, and hence each workshop presents a snapshot of the past and future of space cryogenics. While there have not been any major missions launched since the 2009 workshop when Planck and Herschel dominated the headlines, the program featured presentations on currently funded missions, mission formulation and planning, and on-going instrument and technology development – which collectively indicate that the present situation is robust.”