Environmental, Vacuum & Leak Testing

The IES Murrieta Test Facility (MTF) provides comprehensive environmental, vacuum, thermal vacuum, and leak testing to evaluate hardware under the extreme conditions encountered during operation, transportation, and spaceflight. Our flexible test infrastructure allows us to reproduce controlled combinations of temperature, vacuum, altitude, humidity, and other environmental conditions, providing customers with the data needed to validate performance, identify potential failure modes, and qualify critical hardware.

Our environmental testing capabilities support temperature cycling from below -400°F to above 500°F, as well as altitude and vacuum testing ranging from sea-level conditions to the extreme low-pressure environments encountered in space. Where required, multiple environmental conditions can be combined to create highly controlled, application-specific test profiles.

Thermal Testing

IES operates a range of environmental test chambers, from compact bench-top systems to large walk-in chambers, capable of accommodating test articles of varying sizes. Advanced digital process and limit controls provide precise, repeatable temperature profiles while protecting both the test article and facility.

Vacuum & Thermal Vacuum Testing

With decades of experience supporting space vehicles, launch systems, and aerospace hardware, IES provides vacuum and thermal vacuum testing that simulates the low-pressure and thermal environments encountered in space. Our vacuum chambers and bell-jar systems can combine controlled temperature extremes with high-vacuum conditions to evaluate hardware performance under realistic space-like environments.

Thermal vacuum testing can be tailored to the specific requirements of the hardware and program, including controlled thermal cycling, vacuum exposure, functional testing, and performance monitoring. Our engineers and technicians develop customized test configurations, instrumentation, and procedures to provide reliable, traceable data for design validation and qualification.

Leak Testing

IES provides precision ambient and cryogenic leak testing for components and systems where pressure containment and leak integrity are critical. Our capabilities include helium and hydrogen mass-spectrometer leak detection for extremely small leak rates, with sensitivity down to approximately 10⁻⁹ atm-cc/sec, as well as mass-flow and volumetric-flow measurement for larger leak rates.

Our leak-testing capabilities span a broad range of applications and flow rates, using helium, hydrogen, and nitrogen as test media. By selecting the appropriate measurement technology for the application, IES can characterize everything from extremely small leaks to high-volume flow conditions, providing accurate and repeatable data for development, troubleshooting, qualification, and production testing.

From thermal cycling and altitude simulation to thermal vacuum and precision leak detection, IES provides the engineering expertise, flexible infrastructure, and advanced instrumentation required to evaluate hardware under demanding environmental conditions and confidently advance it toward qualification and operation.