1. Microgravity User Support Center (MUSC)
Payload Overviews > Biolab, MSL
POIWG#37, Jan 2015

2. Biolab Facility StatusMS
Troubleshooting ongoing for right Handling Mechanism shutter door.
All other Biolab subsystems are ready to support the upcoming experiments.      
HM shutter door  
LSS       

3. Biolab Rack Operations in Increment (42)43/44
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
June
July
Aug
Sept 4 8 9 1 2 3 5 6 7 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
LSM Tightness Test and N2 flushing
AAS Standard Insert Cleanup and Installation
Laptop Transition t/s 2nd Part (date TBD)
Biolab HM Door Troubleshooting (date TBD)
Reference EC Removal for refurbishment (SpX-7)
T61p Laptop Video Adapter Installation
Quarterly maintenance (HM, LSS and Rotor Tests)
TCU maintenance (cleaning, silica bags, health check)
Biological Isolation Filter & TCS Cold Spot Sponge R&R
Glovebox maintenance (F&R filter R&R, health check) 10
Quarterly maintenance (HM [without positioning test and calibration], LSS and Rotor Tests)
Biolab HM Door Troubleshooting (TBD)
AAS Insert Removal
Triplelux-B Experiment
Microscope Cassette Removal (TBC)
HM and LSS Maintenance (AAS insert exchange & HM positioning / functional Test [TBC], LSS warm-up, tightness, N2 flushing)
Quarterly Maintenance (TBC) (depending on timespan between TPLX-B and TPLX-A)
StemCell Experiment Support (uses TCU) (TBC, collision with TPLX-A to be avoided)
Triplelux-A Experiment 1 2 11 3 12 4 13 5 14 6 15 7 16 17 8 9 18 19

4. Materials Science Laboratory (MSL) in Materials Science Research Rack (MSRR)

5. Material Science Lab (MSL) and it’s Furnaces
Main mode of operation is directional solidification of alloys and semiconductors
Operation of resistance heated Furnace Inserts with up to 8 individually controlled heaters qualified for maximum temperatures of 1400 °C
Precise experiment control (temperature profiles and growth speed) with experiment diagnostics and stimuli (e.g., rotating magnetic field to stir the liquid metal)
Low Gradient Furnace (LGF)
low or medium thermal gradient up to 50 K/cm
Solidification and Quenching Furnace (SQF)
high thermal gradients typically in the range of K/cm in the cartridge, consisting of one hot cavity, an exchangeable adiabatic zone, and a water cooled chill block (cooling zone) acting as heat sink
Quench capability provided by a rapid displacement of the furnace insert, typically 50 to 100 mm within about 1 second

6. MSL – Batches 1 and 2 during I 21 – I40
30 experiments for 3 project teams
MICAST (Prof. Ratke, DLR, and Prof. Erdmann, Univ. Arizona) MIcrostructure formation in CASTing of technical alloys under diffusive and magnetically controlled convective conditions
CETSOL (Prof. Zimmermann, ACCESS) Columnar to Equiaxed Transition in SOLidification processing
SETA (Prof. Froyen, Univ. Leuven) Solidification along a Eutectic path in Ternary Alloys
MICAST
CETSOL
© DLR & ACCESS

7. MSL Experiment Status MSL Batches # Experiments Furnace Experiments
MSL integration with LGF ( I21 - October 2009) 1a 2
LGF
MICAST1-7, CETSOL1-6 1b 11
Furnace exchange LGF ->SQF (I26)
2a set1 6
SQF
MICAST#2, 1-6
CETSOL#2, 1-7
SETA1-4
2a set2
CETSOL#2, 7 To be downloaded with SpX5
to come: MSL pump spin up every six months (I44 and I46)

8. Joint MSRR/MSL Operations Concept
Cologne
Huntsville
White Sands
Houston

9. Outlook - New SQF and LGF Furnaces
LGF FM-02
Hardware ready
Acceptance and launch to be defined
SQF FM-02
Thermal tests planned Oct 2015
Acceptance planned first quarter 2016
Ready for launch March 2016
© DLR

10. Outlook - New Experiments
NASA – upload planned SpX-9 and/or SpX-11,12
Dr. German, 9 SCAs for average of 24h each
Dr. Volz, 10 SCAs ranging from 5-13 days each
Dr. Su, 9 SCAs ranging from 8-14 days each, upload tbd
ESA (batch 2b) – upload planned beginning 2016 (SpX-10 tbd)
METCOMP (Prof. Rappaz), 1 SCA for 96h, 5 SCAs for 75h
SETA (Prof. Froyen), 8 SCAs for 53 hours each
Calibration SCA for furnace performance test (test run 24h)
Recommendation to resume MSL program with ESA batch 2b experiments
© DLR

11. MSL Summary 29 MSL experiments successfully performed until Dec 2014
Payload jointly operated by MSRR (NASA) and MSL (ESA) teams
New ESA and NASA experiments under development, to be launched from end of 2015/beginning 2016 onwards
Experiment program (41 SCAs) to resume 2016 for the next three years
Baseline: Joint NASA/ESA Technical Understanding (TU) document on Operation of Facilities (Jul 2013)
New furnaces LGF#2 and SQF#2 under development for launch 2016
Acknowledgment to NASA and ESA increment management and operations teams for continuous support

12. MUSC – Points of Contact
Head of MUSC:
MSL – Operations:
MSL – Science Support:
Biolab – Operations:
Biolab – Science Support:
Ground Systems:

13. Acronym List EC Experiment Container EM Engineering Model
EPM European Physiology Module
HM Handling Mechanism
Inc Increment
LSS Life Support System
LSM Life Support Module
MUSC Microgravity User Support Center
MS Microscope
MSL Materials Science Laboratory
MSRR Materials Science Research Rack
PDP Passive Detector Pack
PI Principal Investigator
PLMDM Payload Multiplexer/Demultiplexer
PSRP Payload Safety Review Panel
SCA Sample Cartridge Assembly
SP Spectrophotometer
SPP Sample Processing Program
SPR System Problem Report
SQF Solidification and Quenching Furnace
TIR Team Integrated Review
U/L Upload
UIP Utility Interface Panel
© DLR