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[Brittany] Can you describe what PCM is? [Ryan] Yes, so PCM is basically a material that we utilize one of its phase changes generally it’s going to be solid to liquid so think of a wax as you apply heat it’s approaching its melt temperature starts going through its phase change and then it’s starting to use that energy towards its late heat of fusion. So you can store a significant amount of heat across that phase change that if you are in sensible heating would just cause a fairly significant temperature increase but because it’s absorbing it through phase change you’re not really seeing any temperature increase as you’re inputting more energy into the system. [Brittany] So Ryan, we’ve been seeing a lot of interest from our customers about using PCM, a new technology that we don’t have heritage with currently to put it on their satellites is that something you see being better? [Ryan] The answer is yes right so there are several things that you can find attractive from phase change material insects one of which is it’s passive doesn’t have anything moving fluid it doesn’t have a pump it has very few joints so it’s low maintenance if it works here it survives the launch it’ll work in orbit generally that’s going to be used for pulsed applications so anything that has a duty cycle something that’s fifty percent or below use so if you’re hitting your amplifier for 10 percent of the orbit PCM is a great solution rather than the radiator panel seeing the full brunt of that heat load it sees the time average load so you can get a significantly smaller radiator panel and corresponding mass reduction. [Brittany] so when would you where would you these and low Earth orbit or missions to do when is when would I see this that’s great great question it really depends on your environment I know a lot of the interest we’re getting right now is oriented more so towards the lower Earth orbit I know that there are some additional thermal challenges whenever it comes to your man wishes the moon or just missions to the moon where there’s some additional reflective radiation that’s the tendon spacecraft that can cause some thermal challenges it’s place it to say it’s going to depend upon your environment like I said if it’s something that’s Duty cycled or you know you just need to absorb a certain amount or certain aeration it’s a very good application. [Brittany] So what’s one place that PCM would be a really good fit that maybe someone wouldn’t know right off the bat? [Ryan] I guess one potential opportunity for PCM is if you have solder joints that are going through fairly significant temperature swings it can be used to dampen that and potentially inhibit some of the solder fatigue issues you might see on some of your components more on the board level than anything so that’s one I guess application that might not be completely evident but it is something that may be worth worthwhile looking into. [Brittany] All right what would be the benefit of using a PCM over a more traditional cooling solution in space? [Ryan] it’s going to be contingent on your application so if you have something that’s duty cycle and you’re inputting a lot of power over ten minutes and then you’re off for 80 using the heat pipe is going to take all that power directly to your radiator or even just relying on conduction versus phase change material if you put that as a link in between the radiator panel and your source and the resistance network it’s going to first absorb that heat and the radiator panel is just going to see the time average basically heat load or energy coming out of the system so you get a much smaller radiator for the same application, it’s a fairly tremendous in terms of mass savings depending on the application. [Brittany] Why is it important to save mass on a spacecraft or satellite? [Ryan] Mass is expensive [Music]