MELFI Thermal Characterization and Verification from Subsystem to System

The Minus Eighty degrees Celsius Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI) will be the first freezer to be delivered to NASA as Laboratory Support Equipment (LSE) by ESA. Among the MELFI thermal requirements, the rapid freezing of samples to a required temperature and the low power consumption that limits MELFI performance during re-cooling phases after power off, are ones of the most critical. This paper will present the thermal activities, which led both to a verification of those requirements and to a complete thermal characterization of MELFI.