A team of undergraduates from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) will soon deploy its Cryogenic Star Tracking Attitude Regulation System, a telescope and camera based “compass” for rockets that will orient the payload based on the images of stars. CSTARS uses a new kind of detector technology and will fly on a NASA technology demonstration mission scheduled in December.

A group of 180 researchers and engineers from 12 countries gathered in San Diego June 20-23 for the 19th International Cryocooler Conference (ICC19), coordinated by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and held at the Town and Country Resort and Convention Center. The conference included a combination of 80 oral and poster presentations over the course of three days. Presentation topics included cryocooler modeling and analysis, cryocooler control electronics, large-scale cryocooler applications as well as cryocooler miniaturization, laboratory and aerospace applications.

In the past year, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) has twice observed gravitational waves from the merger of black holes in deep space. Thermal noise, however, limits how small a motion the system can detect. In order to address this issue, and thus take the next big step in gravitational-wave astronomy, the LIGO Collaboration is testing higher Q materials and preparing a cryogenic upgrade for the detector. A room-sized prototype is expected within three years.

CSA has established the T.H.K. Frederking Space Cryogenics Workshop (SCW) Student Scholarship, an award honoring our first CSA Fellow, Dr. Traugott Frederking, who generously sponsored selected students to attend SCW to help develop their technical maturity by exposing them to current leaders and emerging developments in the field.

The proper design of cryostats requires knowledge of many disciplines including: cryogenic properties of materials, heat transfer and thermal insulation, instrumentation, safety, structures and seals. One of the best ways to learn about cryostat design is to study the design choices and resulting performance of previous designs. This book provides such a review. It is edited by John Weisend II, a senior scientist and group leader at European Spallation Source ERIC and CSA chairman, and includes contributions from Weisend’s colleagues and researchers from CERN, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (CSA CSM), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, GE Global Research and Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (CSA CSM).

Technifab Products, Inc. (CSA CSM) has announced organizational changes, segmenting its business into three distinct divisions—Technifab Cryogenics, Technifab CNC Manufacturing and Technifab Cryodewars.

Physicists at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have determined a new reason for why cuprates become superconducting at high temperature. After growing and analyzing thousands of samples of a cuprate known as LSCO for the four elements it contains (lanthanum, strontium, copper and oxygen), the team determined that this "critical" temperature is controlled by the density of electron pairs—the number of electron pairs per unit area.

Researchers from several of the world's major institutions made announcements during the 38th International Conference on High Energy Physics, including physicists working at CERN, the T2K Collaboration and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (CSA CSM).

Researchers at the US Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory have discovered a new type of Weyl semimetal, a material that opens the way for further study of Weyl fermions, a type of massless elementary particle hypothesized by high-energy particle theory and potentially useful for creating high-speed electronic circuits and quantum computers.

Researchers at Canada's McGill University didn't turn on a red light, but managed nevertheless to lure musician Sting into a lab for an unusual neuroscience study based on his brain scans. The findings, published in the journal Neurocase, offer insights into how gifted individuals find connections between seemingly disparate thoughts or sounds, in fields ranging from arts to politics or science, according to the research team.

Companies exporting to Canada must obtain a CRN, or Canadian Registration Number—issued by a Canadian provincial government such as Ontario (TSSA), Alberta (ABSA) or British Columbia (BC)—before shipping products to Canadian clients. It’s a process that can take from three to six months, and it is one that is often overlooked according to representatives from TUV Rheinland AIA Services, LLC., an ASME accredited authorized inspection agency that provides multiple types of inspection services.

Lake Shore Cryotronics, Inc. (CSA CSM) is now offering for pre-order a unique terahertz-frequency probe arm option for its CPX, CPX-VF, CRX-4K and CRX-VF cryogenic probe stations. The arm enables precise probing and measurement of millimeter-wave devices at 75 to 110 GHz (WR10 band) or 140 to 220 GHz (WR5.1 band) frequencies within a tightly controlled cryogenic test environment.

Technical Fibre Products has launched of a new variant of its Supacool range of lightweight cryogenic tissues. It features a lightweight microfine glass spacer tissue co-wound with aluminum foil, forming the basis of multi-layer insulation or super insulation that can be inserted between the inner and outer walls of a cryogenic vessel.

A large X-ray signal previously seen emanating from the Perseus galaxy cluster did not appear in the final data sent by the Hitomi spacecraft, casting a shadow over speculation that the anomalously bright signal might have come from dark matter.

The US Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific recently awarded contracts that shore up its efforts to develop new cryogenic radio systems. The award covers a broad range of R&D, according to the bid proposal, including signal detection, conditioning, conversion, processing and storage.

A group of scientists at the University of New Mexico’s Department of Physics and Astronomy are using lasers to advance optical refrigeration, a technique that reaches cryogenic temperatures without any moving parts.