Thermal Analysis of a Spectrometer Mounted on a Geostationary Transfer Orbit CubeSat
Publication: Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 35, Issue 4
Abstract
Thermal modelling and analysis of CubeSats is needed to have control over its final platform performance. In this paper, we present the method and the thermal analysis results applied to an infrared spectrometer for a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) mission, on board the 6U CubeSat named SpectroCube, developed and funded by the European Space Agency. Three challenges have been addressed: first, to maintain the correct temperature range for the spectrometer in a high-density platform with different surrounding thermal requirements; second, external radiation flux intensity from the Earth changes considerably along the orbit; and third, internal dissipation and external heat loads are significant with respect to the heat evacuation available area. Thermal analysis made in ESATAN-TMS 2019 has been used to improve and modify the layout of the payload mechanical design and to achieve the thermal control system requirements. Main mission parameters, orbit thermal characteristics, power dissipated and thermal requirements are presented. The results show that both active and passive thermal control are needed to maintain the payload’s components within their temperature ranges.
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Data Availability Statement
The payload design materials were provided by a third party and can be directly requested from the provider, as indicated in the Acknowledgements. The geometrical and thermal models are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the ESA Technology Research Programme (Contract No. 4000119981). The authors would like to thank ESA’s Concurrent Design Facility study team for the highly constructive and successful design and development process of SpectroCube.
A. Elsaesser gratefully acknowledges funding from the BMWi/DLR (Grant Nos. 50WB1623 and 50WB2023). Elsaesser was also supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 706072 (NanoMembR).
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Published In
Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 35 • Issue 4 • July 2022
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 22, 2021
Accepted: Feb 16, 2022
Published online: Apr 6, 2022
Published in print: Jul 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Sep 6, 2022
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