Reappraisal of Unrealised & Novel Thermal Control Issues For Applications In Future Spacecraft

This paper will discuss thermal control examples, which were considered to be (very) promising in the past, whose further developments were stopped due to number of reasons, but which currently are regaining attention resulting in a re-start of R&D activities, which must lead to applications in real spacecraft. The various issues are electro-hydrodynamic and electro-osmotic control of heat pipes and of capillary and mechanically pumped single- and two-phase thermal control loops, switching by electro-hydrodynamic, electro-osmotic, and the novel electro-wetting control, vapour pressure driven thermal control loops, thermal-gravitational modelling & scaling, and controlled rotating radial heat pipe joints. The revival of the old activities and the start of novel activities are considered to be important for near-future spacecraft thermal control applications.