Latest News
September 19 2022
Quest Thermal was invited to attend the NASA Cryogenic Fuel Systems for Aircraft meeting September 19 - 20 at Glenn Research Center. This interesting NASA - industry workshop discussed goals, challenges and potential future research strategy to develop cryogenic fuels for aircraft and sustainable aviation. Topics discussed ranged from certification, airport operations, airframe challenges and opportunities, propulsion challenges, to onboard fuel system challenges and opportunites. It was an interesting meeting, and Quest scientists and engineers were glad to attend and participate!
September 01 2022
Quest Thermal Group is working with an Aerospace Prime on the NASA Roman Space Telescope. Quest is providing IMLI engineering design and fabrication to insulate part of the Wide Field Instrument module. Super exciting to be working on this great flight program for NASA!
June 15 2022
Quest Thermal is working with our client to model, analyze, prototype and test vapor cooled foam insulation systems. The results will inform our understanding and modeling of foam based insulation, and well as determine precise heat flux and performance obtainable. Vapor cooled foam insulation systems may be useful for certain applications such as LH2 fueled aircraft.
March 24 2022
Quest Thermal, working with an Aerospace Prime Contractor, has designed, fabricated and installed a novel IMLI insulation system for a large LH2 test tank that integrates an active cryocooler with vapor cooling methods. This NASA Tipping Point program is to advance the state of the art for ISRU surface liquefaction and storage. The system includes IMLI and WMLI highly integrated with the tank, tank supports, vapor cooling manifolds and cryocooler feedlines.
March 07 2022
Quest Thermal was pleased to work with a great team at Goddard Space Flight Center on a flight-like prototype of the LEMS lunar surface payload. High performance IMLI allowed LEMS to meet the thermal requirements to survive and operate through lunar nights on the lunar surface.
July 01 2021
Quest Thermal, working with our client, has designed a lightweight thermal insulation system that provides low heat leak in-air on ground, and improved performance at high altitudes. Structural discrete spacers self support a thin vacuum shell, providing heat flux as low as 0.3W/m2, and estimated LH2 mass fractions near 80%.
May 15 2021
Quest Thermal's NASA program wrapped up to develop a novel variable spacecraft radiator (Variable Gas Radiator, VGR). Current variable radiators, often based on louvers, offer a 4:1 turndown ratio, and NASA's goals were to reach 6:1. Quest's Variable Gas Radiator combined unique properties our our Discrete Spacer Technology™ with controlled gas conductance, and acheived a turndown ratio of 25:1 in a very lightweight radiator structure. VGR technology offers 5-fold better variability then current state of the art louver radiators, had a 3- to 5-fold lower minimum heat flux, and is now at... Read More
April 19 2021
Quest Thermal has designed, built and tested a novel Mars surface liquefaction insulation system. Demonstrated on a 400L 30" diameter tank, MultiEnvironmentMLI (MEMLI) offers low heat flux in-air, during in-space cruise, and on Mars surface. Discrete spacers support 10mil to 16mil Al vacuum shells, allowing a 10layer MEMLI system to have a heat leak of 0.233W/m2 (90K LOX, 210K, Mars ambient pressure) with a low mass of 1.8kg/m2. NASA's Mars surface liquefaction team heat flux goal was1.5W/m2. MEMLI is a lightweight, effective, high performance thermal insulation system that operates well... Read More
January 15 2021
Quest's IMLI has been designed into a large scale Human Lander System ground test, with testing occuring at Marshall. IMLI was custom designed for the spherical tank to minimize heat flux and help optimize vapor cooling, and Quest's Wrapped MLI (WMLI) provided high performance insulation for vapor cooled fluid lines and cryogenic piping.
August 01 2020
Quest's IMLI is helping reduce heat leak from NASA's Lunar Environment Monitoring Station (LEMS), a lunar surface science payload. IMLI's high performance on a LEMS mockup enables reduced internal spacecraft heating units (RHUs) and allows the spacecraft to survive the long, and cold, lunar night.