LED lighting system for the first time into space

Astronauts aboard the Shenzhou seven spacecraft will be the first Chinese to enter space. Shanghai scientists developed a set of LED lighting system, will illuminate this historic moment. Yesterday, the reporter in its birthplace - Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, to see the magic light.

White, 24 LED light bulb arranged on the base with the attitude of half the size of A4 paper, a bit like a sucker covered with large octopus legs.

Although the pomp than the theatre spotlight, but this unprepossessing little guy opened, but people did not dare to look relatively bright: it is at the level of 160 degrees, 80 degrees vertical three-dimensional space, even if the object distance of more than 3 meters, also can make the object successfully by CCD camera shooting clear down. It consumes a surprisingly small amount of energy, only 27 Watts - an incandescent lamp of only 25 watts, dimly lit up in a small bathroom.

Project leader, Shanghai Institute of Technology Institute researcher Zhang Tao said that in the past in the international space lighting in the gas discharge metal halide lamp, high power consumption, high pressure, high heat, light is not an ideal space. In recent years, the development of LED lighting is very fast, not only high efficiency, but also safe and reliable, it is possible to replace the metal halide lamp, a new generation of space lighting source. The application to the god seven, is a historic attempt.

Outer space environment is very bad: in the face of the sun when the temperature of the heat to hundreds of degrees, carrying the sun and cold to -50 degrees, but also bear the universe in various high-energy particle bombardment uninterrupted, all kinds of mechanical extreme environment and spacecraft launch phase. To make this lighting system lights up in space, with eighteen scientists like Wu Yi: it is the floor outside the white coat is a kind of special temperature white paint, not only can "eat" out of high energy particles and resist the sun radiation, and strong cooling capacity. It is necessary to know that high temperature can be a fatal threat to the brightness of LED, and radiation cooling is one of the most effective ways to heat in the vacuum environment of space. In order to make the light soft evenly illuminate the astronaut extravehicular activities in the region, scientists at the Finel lens mode, put the 24 small light bulbs are arranged in a wave shape, each "bulb" angle through accurate calculation, but also the anti glare treatment, lest the astronauts in the darkness of the universe at the light have dizziness.

Is stable and reliable, is a top priority for aerospace devices. The main research staff assistant researcher Liu Shishen told reporters that the 24 "bulb" the lighting system on the mutual redundancy, even if one fails, energy will be assigned to the other "light bulb", the other "bulb" more bright, to make up for the dark. According to the strict calculation and test, the average working time of the lighting system is more than 1 million hours. It is reported that the future of the transport ship surveillance lighting, will also be possible to use this LED lighting system, when the brightness and lighting distance will be greatly improved.