Air Innovations – the leader in custom environmental control solutions for temperature, humidity, filtration, and pressure – announced the availability of a new case study in which the company provided pre-launch cooling to the payload and core of NASA partner Orbital Sciences Corporation’s new Antares rocket.
The rocket was scheduled to be towed one mile horizontally to the pad for takeoff. During this slow journey, the payload and core sections had to be in an environmentally-controlled climate anywhere within a wide temperature (45°-85°F / 7°-29.5°C) and humidity range (10%-60%RH) with once-through, steady-state air while operating in outside air and in a salt environment.
Once at the pad, additional environmental control units were needed to maintain the temperature and humidity range until launch. These units were placed in a bunker under the pad and were remotely controlled. had a similar temperature and humidity range as the portable environmental control unit that was used for the mile-long journey.
In total, Air Innovations designed and built one portable environment control system (PECS) on a trailer for the mile-long journey and three water-cooled environmental control systems (ECUs) for the pad location. Key specifications included 1100-2200 and 1200-2400 CFM variable airflow operational range; 50°-100°F (10°-38°C) at a max dew point of 45°F (7°C), switching to a max dew point of -7.6°F (-22°C) for the core ECUs, and 60-65kW of heating per system.
Read the full version of this aerospace case study.
About Air Innovations
Air Innovations designs and builds environmental process control systems for applications that can’t be addressed with standard HVAC equipment. The company customizes packaged solutions for temperature (with control tolerances as precise as plus or minus 0.01°C); humidity (with control tolerances to plus or minus 0.5%); filtration (HEPA, ultra low particulate air [ULPA], and molecular); pressure; and, direct expansion, chilled-water or thermoelectric capabilities.
Air Innovations works closely with its clients to tailor products that can either be integrated into their original equipment or be freestanding. Air Innovations serves a broad range of industries, including aerospace, defense, semiconductor, R&D, pharmaceutical. Some recent Air Innovations projects include designing and building air conditioning for complex structures such as the cabins for very large Ferris wheels, process control systems for pharmaceutical blister packaging machines, and a cooling system for a silicon pixel sub-detector located inside a linear accelerator at a federal laboratory.
The company also manufactures its own brands of environmental control products that are used by: fine wine collectors (Wine Guardian®); supermarket florists (Floratech®); hospitals (IsolationAir®); and, homeowners seeking purified room air (HEPAir X100®).
All Air Innovations products are designed, tested and manufactured at its 40,000 square-foot headquarters in Syracuse, NY.