Evaluating the performance of portable air filter walls for the James Webb Space Telescope launch campaign

Alan C. Abeel; Craig B. Jones; Eve M. Wooldridge; Edwin W. Goldman; Colette D. Lepage

doi:10.1117/12.2632446

3 October 2022 Evaluating the performance of portable air filter walls for the James Webb Space Telescope launch campaign

Alan C. Abeel, Craig B. Jones, Eve M. Wooldridge, Edwin W. Goldman, Colette D. Lepage

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 12224, Space Systems Contamination: Prediction, Control, and Performance 2022; 122240B (2022) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2632446
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2022, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched from the Centre Spatial Guyanais (CSG) in December 2021. JWST’s requirements permitted processing in International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Class 7 or better facilities, but CSG was only equipped with ISO Class 8 facilities. To temporarily upgrade the air cleanliness in the Payload Processing Facility, Fueling Hall, and Final Assembly Building Encapsulation Hall, NASA provided two portable High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) and carbon filter walls that were used in each location. The walls were comprised of stacks of two modules high and arranged in push-push configurations as shown to be most effective via Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations of expected floor layouts in each facility. After delivery to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in 2020, the walls underwent initial verification measurements inside a cleanroom and validation testing in an uncontrolled area to quantify their improvement of air cleanliness and particle and molecular fallout. Validation testing showed improvements of 83-99% for airborne particle counts, 79-91% for particle fallout, and 50- 90% for molecular fallout. The particle improvements were applied to the contamination budget analysis that tracked current and predicted future cleanliness against End-of-Life requirements for JWST’s critical surfaces. At CSG, the walls successfully maintained an ISO Class 7 environment or better within their envelope in each location, despite their presence in ISO Class 8 facilities with dense integration operations.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Alan C. Abeel, Craig B. Jones, Eve M. Wooldridge, Edwin W. Goldman, and Colette D. Lepage "Evaluating the performance of portable air filter walls for the James Webb Space Telescope launch campaign", Proc. SPIE 12224, Space Systems Contamination: Prediction, Control, and Performance 2022, 122240B (3 October 2022); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2632446

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