Research and Development on the Flexible Thermal Management Device for Expanding the Feasibility of Space Probes

Abstract

This paper proposed the flexible thermal management device: Reversible Thermal Panel (RTP). This device can control heat dissipation value passively depending on its thermal environment change and will be quite useful for the space probe which has wide range heat dissipation requirement. In order to propose the effectiveness of this device, this paper performs the design, fabrication, and experimental verification of the RTP system prototype. The prototype considers the realistic application and achieves larger heat dissipation compared with the previous researches. In order to achieve the huge heat dissipation, mechanical design of the RTP is completely renewed. The new design is confirmed through the numerical model simulation and experimental verification. After the design verification, the prototype system is tested under space environmental simulator. The test results show the variation of the heat dissipation value depending on the input power variation. In addition, the results show the possibility of the achievement of the real space probe heat dissipation requirement. The numerical analysis model is constructed using the test results. The way of the performance improvement is discussed with the help of the analysis model. Through the discussion of this paper, the proposed system shows the effectiveness and potential of the real space probe application.