Glovebox Freezer is a portable payload facility designed for rapid freezing of biological samples aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in the Microgravity Sciences Glovebox (MSG) or Life Sciences Glovebox (LSG). The design features two separate components, a freezing interface that is intended to mount inside the MSG or LSG whie experiments are performed, and an electronics control unit (ECU) that mounts in an adjacent rack to the MSG or LSG and provides power and drive signals to the freezing interface. The first Glovebox Freezer arrived to the ISS as a part of the SpaceX CRS-16 mission in 2018. There are currently two Glovebox Freezer units on the ISS available to support ISS cold stowage research.

Glovebox Freezer is the most compact of the two Rapid Freeze designs and is capable of cooling 25 mL samples to -95^oC in less than 60 seconds. There standard cartridges readily available for freezing several sample sizes ranging from 1 mL to 30 mL, and custom cartridges can be made upon request for experiments that don’t align with the standard cartridges.

The sample cartridges are a key component for rapidly cooling research specimens within the Glovebox Freezer. They are made of low-alloy, high conductivity copper and are interchangeable based on the requirements of a given experiment.

Copper Sample Cartridges