Thermophysical Property Measurement: A Call to Action

Thermophysical property measurement using levitation processing in space, while expensive, has the potential for providing benchmark datasets of highest quality. Unfortunately, much of the previous historical record concentrates on data accuracy without adequately addressing precision making it hard to justify the added costs associated with developing and using microgravity facilities. Furthermore, analysis of measurement precision in the literature often does not fully distinguish the magnitude of relative contributions from both systematic and random error. This paper presents a brief review of the status of measurements for a subset of key properties that are appropriate for space investigation. From this, it is hoped that discussions are stimulated across the property measurement community to initiate development of reporting standards to better document relative variability for specific test platforms, both ground and space, to allow industry to better define the value-added for sponsoring space experimentation.