Huygens Probe thermal aspects
Abstract
The Huygens Probe thermal design has to cope with three main mission phases: several years of cruise/coast phase with considerable variations in the distance to the Sun; few minutes of high heat fluxes during entry in Titan's atmosphere; and some hours of descent in a very cold atmospheric environment. Several specific design solutions for similar first and second phase environments are already developed and experience from Earth based cryogenic applications contribute to the solution of the third phase. The challenge related to Huygens thermal control is to combine these different features and design options in a coherent solution which provides minimum mass combined with maximum reliability during all mission phases. To this end, the various design parameters are identified and the related sensitivies of the design options are analyzed. This includes consideration of appropriate thermal protection for entry thermal control where a tradeoff between mass and risk is presented. Based on the above steps, a design concept and its performance are given. In addition implications on system level are investigated. Hardware selection issues are addressed with mathematical modeling and verification methods concerning the descent phase. Some examples illustrate the design methods and assumptions used and, thus, substantiate the thermal performance predictions.
- Publication:
-
4th European Symposium on Space Environmental Control Systems
- Pub Date:
- December 1991
- Bibcode:
- 1991esse.conf..273W
- Keywords:
-
- Atmospheric Entry;
- Control Systems Design;
- Space Probes;
- Spacecraft Control;
- Temperature Control;
- Thermal Protection;
- Mathematical Models;
- Parameter Identification;
- Titan;
- Spacecraft Design, Testing and Performance