Liquid helium cools the walls
Liquid helium cools the walls
Conventional test facilities face the problem that the exhaust gases of the engine bounce off the wall and distort the plume under investigation. At the Göttingen STG-CT, the walls are cooled to minus 269 degrees Celsius with the help of liquid helium. As soon as a thruster plume hits the wall, it freezes – similarly to water on windshields during the winter. As a result, the jet behaves as it would in space, where it is not surrounded by walls.
