Advanced spacecraft thermal control techniques
Abstract
The problems of rejecting large amounts of heat from spacecraft were studied. Shuttle Space Laboratory heat rejection uses 1 kW for pumps and fans for every 5 kW (thermal) heat rejection. This is rather inefficient, and for future programs more efficient methods were examined. Two advanced systems were studied and compared to the present pumped-loop system. The advanced concepts are the air-cooled semipassive system, which features rejection of a large percentage of the load through the outer skin, and the heat pipe system, which incorporates heat pipes for every thermal control function.
- Publication:
-
NASA STI/Recon Technical Report N
- Pub Date:
- September 1977
- Bibcode:
- 1977STIN...7810414F
- Keywords:
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- Cooling Systems;
- Spacecraft Radiators;
- Heat Exchangers;
- Heat Pipes;
- Heat Radiators;
- Radiative Heat Transfer;
- Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer