NMX‑TVC‑2000 / Rev 00 / ~10⁻⁶ mbar / −180 to +150 °C 2026 · Product Page

NMX-TVC-2000 · ENGINEERED TO ORDER — THERMAL VACUUM CHAMBERS

Qualify it for orbit, on the ground.

Name: Thermal Vacuum Chamber
Brand: Neometrix

A turnkey thermal vacuum chamber that reproduces the two defining conditions of space at once — hard vacuum to ~10⁻⁶ mbar and, because there is no air to carry heat, radiative hot–cold from LN₂/GN₂ shrouds, −180 to +150 °C. For satellite and payload thermal-vacuum qualification, thermal-balance and bake-out. Bench UHV to satellite-class chambers. Engineered to order — no specific delivered chamber is claimed on this page.

Enquire — thermal vacuum Capability sheet (PDF)

Fig · 01 Vacuum of space and the temperature of orbit, together — the chamber that qualifies flight hardware — illustrative, not a delivered installation

Vacuum

~10⁻⁶mbar

Shrouds

LN₂/GN₂radiative

Range

−180/+150°C

Pumping

turbo/ cryo

Proves

TVAC+ balance

ISO 9001 / 14001 Engineered to order High-vacuum + cryogenic Automated profiles & logging Noida · India

Overview

Prove it for orbit before you launch it.

You cannot fix a satellite once it is in space. So before it flies, its hardware is taken to the two conditions that define orbit — vacuum and temperature extremes — and made to prove, under those conditions, that it survives and still works. That proof happens in a thermal vacuum chamber, on the ground, where a failure costs a re-test and not a mission.

Illustrative image, not a delivered installation — the interior of an open thermal vacuum chamber: black tubed liquid-nitrogen shroud panels lining the walls, a mounting baseplate, and a generic boxy payload wrapped in multilayer insulation foil with many fine thermocouple wires led to sealed feedthrough connectors, no text and no people

Fig · 02 Inside the chamber — black LN₂ thermal shrouds around a test article on its baseplate, with thermocouple leads to the feedthroughs — illustrative, not a delivered installation

Vacuum and temperature, at the same time. Space is not just cold and not just empty — it is both. The chamber pumps down to space vacuum and radiatively swings the article hot and cold together, because testing one without the other is not testing for orbit.

In vacuum, heat moves only by radiation. There is no air to carry it — so the black, LN₂/GN₂-conditioned thermal shrouds are the thermal system. Their coverage, their surface emissivity and their coolant flow decide whether the article reaches and holds temperature. This is the physics an air-conditioned chamber does not have.

Cleanliness decides whether optics survive. In vacuum, materials outgas; those molecules condense on cold surfaces and can fog a lens or coat a detector. Bake-out and outgassing control (TML / CVCM) are part of the test, not an afterthought.

A climatic chamber asks what weather does to a product. A thermal vacuum chamber asks a harder question — what orbit does to it — and answers it before the launch, not after.

The Chamber Franchise, in Space

A vessel, a thermal system, cryogenics

A thermal vacuum chamber is the vessel-and-thermal competence behind our hyperbaric, climatic and autoclave lines — turned to hold a hard vacuum and radiate heat — pointed at the aerospace sector. Same discipline, orbital duty.

Vacuum + Cryo + Control

Three systems working as one

A staged pumping train, an LN₂ shroud thermal system and a controller that runs pump-down and thermal profiles together — integrated so the vacuum and the temperature hold at once, which is the whole point of the test.

Honest on Sourcing

We integrate; the pumps are specialist

The high-vacuum pumps, gauges and LN₂ hardware are bought-in; Neometrix engineers the chamber — vessel, door and seals, shrouds, thermal system, pumping-train integration, feedthroughs and controls. No delivered chamber is claimed on this page.

Architecture

Make space, then prove the hardware.

The schematic shows how the chamber makes space — roughing then high-vacuum pumping, with radiative LN₂/GN₂ shrouds — and the detail panel explains what each test then proves about the hardware.

FIG · 03THERMAL-VACUUM ARCHITECTURE · PUMP-DOWN · RADIATIVE SHROUDS · TEST ARTICLE · WHAT IT PROVES

Fig · 03 Pump down to space vacuum, chill and cycle by radiation, then prove vacuum integrity, thermal-balance and cleanliness

Arc · 01

The Pumping Train

A roughing stage of rotary and roots pumps takes the chamber from atmosphere to rough vacuum, then a high-vacuum pump — turbo-molecular or cryogenic — carries it to ~10⁻⁶ mbar. Ultimate pressure, leak rate and pump-down time are the acceptance numbers a customer witnesses.

Arc · 02

Radiative Thermal Shrouds

Black, high-emissivity shrouds line the chamber; liquid nitrogen cools them for cold and gaseous nitrogen or heaters warm them for hot, taking the article from about −180 to +150 °C by radiation — the only way heat moves in a vacuum.

Arc · 03

What It Proves

Thermal-vacuum qualification and cycling, and thermal-balance — a heat-in-equals-heat-out test that predicts the temperatures the hardware will actually reach in orbit — with many-channel thermocouple mapping of the whole article, not one convenient point.

Arc · 04

Cleanliness & Control

Bake-out and outgassing control (TML / CVCM) keeps molecular contamination off optics and detectors, while sealed feedthroughs carry instrumentation through the wall and a PLC/SCADA runs automated pump-down and thermal profiles, logging every test.

Have a thermal-vacuum, space-simulation or high-vacuum chamber requirement? Send the article size, vacuum level and temperature range — a clause-by-clause compliance matrix within two working days · [email protected]

Send tender spec

Specifications

Reference chamber, sized to your article.

The parameters below describe a reference thermal vacuum chamber. Working diameter and length, ultimate vacuum, shroud temperature range and medium, pumping train and instrumentation follow from the test article and the qualification standard — bench UHV to satellite-class.

Illustrative image, not a delivered installation — the pumping and control side of a thermal vacuum chamber: turbo-molecular and cryogenic pumps and roughing pumps, vacuum gauges with plain faces, a liquid-nitrogen dewar and valves, and a control cabinet with two dark blank monitors, in a clean laboratory

Fig · 04 The pumping train, LN₂ supply and controls — where the vacuum is made and the profiles are run — illustrative, not a delivered installation

Where thermal-vacuum testing goes wrong

In the shrouds and the cleanliness, not the gauge. A shroud that does not cover the article, or coolant that does not flow evenly, leaves cold and hot spots that make an orbital temperature prediction meaningless; a pumping train sized for the volume but not the outgassing load never reaches its ultimate pressure once a real, gassy article is inside; and a bake-out skipped to save a day leaves contamination that condenses on the very optics the mission depends on.

That is why the shrouds are designed for coverage and emissivity, the article is thermocouple-mapped at many points, and the vacuum and thermal profiles are automated, interlocked and logged. A thermal vacuum chamber is only worth the confidence you can place in the environment it claims to create.

Full specification — expand

Chamber	Thermal vacuum chamber (TVAC) / space simulation chamber — turnkey: vacuum vessel, door & seals, thermal shrouds, LN₂/GN₂ thermal system, pumping train, feedthroughs, controls, installation, commissioning and acceptance testing
Duty	Thermal-vacuum qualification & acceptance, thermal cycling under vacuum, thermal-balance and bake-out / outgassing of satellites, payloads, subsystems, optics, electronics and space-grade materials
Vacuum	Multi-stage pumping — rotary/roots roughing then turbo-molecular or cryogenic high vacuum — to an ultimate of order 10⁻⁵ to 10⁻⁷ mbar; Pirani + cold-cathode / ion gauging
Thermal (radiative)	LN₂/GN₂-conditioned high-emissivity shrouds; article temperature typically −180 °C (LN₂) to +150 °C, by radiation only — no convection in vacuum
Thermal-Balance	Heat-in / heat-out balance test under vacuum to predict on-orbit temperatures · optional solar simulation (AM0)
Cleanliness	Bake-out and molecular-contamination control — total mass loss (TML) and collected volatile condensable material (CVCM) · optional QCM / cold-finger
Instrumentation	Many-channel thermocouple mapping of the article · sealed wall feedthroughs for thermocouples, power, signal and RF · optional motion / rotary feedthrough
Safety	No door-open under vacuum interlock · LN₂ oxygen-deficiency & cryogenic-burn guards · over-temperature / vacuum-loss trips · controlled repressurisation with dry GN₂
Control & Data	PLC / SCADA · automated pump-down & thermal profiles · thermocouple mapping · data logging, trending and reporting per test
Scale	Bench ultra-high-vacuum (UHV) chambers to satellite-class chambers of ~2–3 m working diameter · horizontal cylindrical or vertical top-loading
Sourcing	High-vacuum pumps (turbo-molecular / cryo / diffusion), gauges, LN₂ hardware and the PLC are bought-in specialist items; Neometrix engineers and integrates the chamber around them
Status	Engineered to order · turnkey · quoted across thermal-vacuum / space-simulation chamber requirements · no specific delivered chamber is claimed on this page

PDF · 1 page

Thermal Vacuum Chamber — Capability Sheet

Tender Response

Send your article & qualification standard — compliance matrix in two working days

Variants

One principle, four chambers.

Tenders call it a thermal vacuum chamber, a space simulation chamber, a TVAC facility or a high-vacuum chamber. The principle — hard vacuum and radiative temperature control together — is common to all.

Var · 01

Satellite / Payload TVAC (2–3 m)

The reference chamber — a horizontal cylindrical vessel with full LN₂ shrouds, a staged pumping train and many-channel thermocouple mapping — sized to qualify a satellite or a large payload.

Var · 02

Component & Subsystem Chamber

A smaller bench or reach-in chamber for units, boards, optics and sensors — the workhorse for subsystem thermal-vacuum qualification and bake-out at laboratory scale.

Var · 03

Thermal-Balance & Solar-Simulation

A chamber configured for thermal-balance testing with an AM0 solar-simulation source, to measure and correlate the on-orbit temperatures a spacecraft’s thermal model predicts.

Var · 04

Bake-Out / Outgassing & UHV

A cleanliness-focused chamber for bake-out and outgassing (TML / CVCM) and ultra-high-vacuum materials and process work, where the target is molecular contamination and the last decade of vacuum.

Applications

Where it applies.

Wherever hardware has to be proven for vacuum, orbit or high-vacuum process — before it is trusted to fly or to run.

A · 01Satellite & payload thermal-vacuum qualification and acceptance

A · 02Spacecraft thermal-balance — correlating the on-orbit thermal model

A · 03Space electronics & optics — vacuum + thermal qualification

A · 04Space-materials outgassing — TML / CVCM screening

A · 05Detector & sensor bake-out — cleanliness before integration

A · 06High-vacuum (UHV) research & process chambers for labs and institutes

FAQ

Common questions.

Plain-language answers from the engineering team.

Q · 01 Why test hardware in a vacuum at all — why not just heat and cool it?

Because the vacuum changes the physics, and orbit has both together. On the ground, air carries heat away from a warm part by convection; in space there is no air, so heat can leave only by radiation, and a component that ran cool on the bench can overheat in orbit simply because its usual cooling path is gone. Vacuum also lets materials outgas and can cause electrical effects that never appear at atmosphere. So heating and cooling a part in ordinary air does not qualify it for space — it has to be hot and cold while it is in a hard vacuum, which is exactly what a thermal vacuum chamber creates. That is why the standard acceptance and qualification sequence for flight hardware is a thermal-vacuum test: it is the only environment on the ground that reproduces the two things about orbit that actually break things — the emptiness and the temperature swing — at the same time.

Q · 02 How is this different from a climatic, environmental or altitude chamber?

They condition air; a thermal vacuum chamber removes it. A climatic or environmental chamber holds a specimen in conditioned air — a controlled temperature and humidity — at ordinary pressure, and even an altitude chamber only reduces the air pressure to simulate a few tens of kilometres, still with air present and heat still moving mostly by convection. A thermal vacuum chamber goes far further: it pumps the chamber down to a hard vacuum of the order of 10⁻⁶ mbar — effectively no air — and then controls temperature by radiation from LN₂/GN₂ shrouds, because in that vacuum radiation is the only way heat can travel. The difference is not a matter of degree; it is a different environment and a different machine. One qualifies equipment for weather, on Earth; the other qualifies spacecraft for orbit. We build both — our climatic and environmental chambers are a separate line — and we will tell you plainly which one your standard actually calls for.

Q · 03 What vacuum level do you reach, and how?

To the order of 10⁻⁶ mbar for a typical space-simulation chamber, and lower for ultra-high-vacuum work, using a staged pumping train. You cannot get there in one step: a roughing stage of rotary and roots pumps takes the chamber from atmosphere down to a rough vacuum, and only then does a high-vacuum pump — a turbo-molecular pump, or a cryogenic pump that freezes gas onto a cold surface — carry it the rest of the way. Pressure is read across that huge range with two gauge types, a Pirani for the rough end and a cold-cathode or ion gauge for high vacuum. What matters in practice is not just the number the gauge shows on an empty chamber but the ultimate pressure, the leak rate and the pump-down time with your real article inside, because a gassy payload adds an outgassing load the pumps must overcome. We size the train to the chamber volume and that load, and the acceptance test proves it against a written figure, not a brochure claim.

Q · 04 How do the shrouds set temperature, and what range do you get?

Through radiation, from black shrouds that line the chamber, typically over about −180 to +150 °C. Because there is no air in the chamber to carry heat, temperature can only be exchanged by radiation between surfaces — so the shrouds are made black and high-emissivity and are run to the temperature you want the article to see. For cold, liquid nitrogen is circulated through the shroud panels, pulling them toward −180 °C; for hot, gaseous nitrogen or electric heaters drive the same shrouds up to the order of +150 °C. The article, mounted on a baseplate inside, follows by radiation. The two design questions that decide whether it works are coverage — the shrouds must surround the article so it sees them from every side — and coolant distribution, so there are no warm or cold patches. Get those right and the chamber holds a clean, uniform temperature at each set point; get them wrong and the thermocouple map shows it immediately, which is exactly why we map the article at many points rather than trust a single sensor.

Q · 05 What are outgassing, bake-out and thermal-balance — and why do they matter?

They are the cleanliness and the prediction that a thermal vacuum test adds beyond simple hot-and-cold. Outgassing is the way materials release trapped gas and vapour once they are in a vacuum; those molecules travel and condense on the coldest nearby surfaces — which in a spacecraft are often the lenses and detectors you least want to coat. A bake-out deliberately heats the article under vacuum to drive that contamination off early and pump it away, and it is quantified as total mass loss (TML) and collected volatile condensable material (CVCM). Thermal-balance is different again: it is a test where the heat put into the article is balanced against the heat it radiates away, so the chamber can reproduce and confirm the temperatures the hardware will reach in orbit and validate the spacecraft’s thermal model — sometimes with a solar-simulation source standing in for the sun. Together they turn the chamber from a hot-cold box into a genuine space-qualification tool.

Q · 06 Do you build the whole chamber, or integrate bought-in pumps?

We engineer the chamber and integrate specialist vacuum hardware — and we are clear about the split. The high-vacuum pumps (turbo-molecular, cryogenic or diffusion), the roughing pumps, the vacuum gauges and the liquid-nitrogen supply hardware, together with the PLC, are proprietary items from established makers, chosen for the duty. What Neometrix designs and delivers is everything that turns them into a working thermal vacuum chamber: the vacuum vessel, the door and its seals, the thermal shrouds and the LN₂/GN₂ thermal system, the pumping-train integration and pump-down sequencing, the instrumentation feedthroughs and thermocouple mapping, and the controls, automated profiles and data — plus installation, commissioning and acceptance testing. It draws on the same pressure-vessel, thermal and cryogenic competence behind our hyperbaric, climatic and autoclave lines. To be plain about status: this capability is offered turnkey and quoted against thermal-vacuum chamber requirements; no specific delivered chamber is claimed on this page.

↗

The chamber & vessel line from Neometrix.

The same pressure-vessel and thermal competence, in its other forms — weather, heat-and-pressure and life-support — engineered at our Noida facility.

↗ Weather

Climatic & Environmental Test Chambers

Conditioned air — temperature & humidity at pressure — the sister discipline.

↗ Heat & Pressure

Aerospace & Industrial Autoclave

A heated pressure vessel with uniformity — the vessel franchise, curing composites.

↗ Life Support

Hyperbaric & Saturation Diving Systems

A vessel rated for people under pressure — the same discipline, opposite of vacuum.

Browse all Neometrix product lines.

Get a quotation

Send your article
and qualification standard.

The Defence Programmes desk replies within two working days with a clause-by-clause compliance matrix and a budgetary quotation. Write to [email protected] or use the form.

Enquire — thermal vacuum Capability sheet (PDF) +91 7777 876 876

ISO 9001 / 14001 ENGINEERED TO ORDER — THERMAL VACUUM CHAMBERS ~10⁻⁶ mbar · LN₂/GN₂ SHROUDS · −180 / +150 °C · TVAC + BALANCE ENGINEERED IN NOIDA · INDIA

Qualify it for orbit, on the ground.

Prove it for orbit before you launch it.

A vessel, a thermal system, cryogenics

Three systems working as one

We integrate; the pumps are specialist

Make space, then prove the hardware.

The Pumping Train

Radiative Thermal Shrouds

What It Proves

Cleanliness & Control

Reference chamber, sized to your article.

Where thermal-vacuum testing goes wrong

One principle, four chambers.

Satellite / Payload TVAC (2–3 m)

Component & Subsystem Chamber

Thermal-Balance & Solar-Simulation

Bake-Out / Outgassing & UHV

Where it applies.

Common questions.

The chamber & vessel line from Neometrix.

Climatic & Environmental Test Chambers

Aerospace & Industrial Autoclave

Hyperbaric & Saturation Diving Systems

Send your article
and qualification standard.

Similar Products

Share This Page

Qualify it for orbit, on the ground.

Prove it for orbit before you launch it.

A vessel, a thermal system, cryogenics

Three systems working as one

We integrate; the pumps are specialist

Make space, then prove the hardware.

The Pumping Train

Radiative Thermal Shrouds

What It Proves

Cleanliness & Control

Reference chamber, sized to your article.

Where thermal-vacuum testing goes wrong

One principle, four chambers.

Satellite / Payload TVAC (2–3 m)

Component & Subsystem Chamber

Thermal-Balance & Solar-Simulation

Bake-Out / Outgassing & UHV

Where it applies.

Common questions.

The chamber & vessel line from Neometrix.

Climatic & Environmental Test Chambers

Aerospace & Industrial Autoclave

Hyperbaric & Saturation Diving Systems

Send your articleand qualification standard.

Similar Products

Share This Page

Send your article
and qualification standard.