Small Satellite Thermal Control - Present - Day Tendencies

The main idea of paper is to present the survey of current tendencies in micro-satellites' thermal control concepts that can be rational and useful for posterior missions due to intensive dissemination of satellites of such type. For this purpose the available literature information and lessons learned by the National Technical University of Ukraine during the elaboration of thermal control hardware for micro-satellites Magion 4, 5 [1], BIRD [2] and autonomous thermal control systems for interplanetary missions VEGA [3], PHOBOS [4] have been used. The main parameters taken into consideration for analysis are the satellite sizes, mass, power consumption, orbit parameters and altitude control peculiarities, thermal control description. It was defined that passive thermal control concepts are widely used, excepting autonomous temperature regulation for sensitive components such as batteries, high precision optics, some types of sensors. The practical means for realization of passive thermal control design as multilayer insulation, optical coatings, heat conductive elements, gaskets are briefly described.