Thermal Analysis of a Comet Rendezvous

The thermal analysis of a fictitious, but representative, comet rendezvous mission was undertaken in order to investigate and validate some previously untried analysis techniques. The two major features of the investigation were the highly non-isothermal property of the body around which the orbit is made and the need to fully model the transient thermal effect of a temperature dependant shutter. The analysis was undertaken using the software tools ESATAN and ESARAD. A method was developed, using a sub-model approach, which successfully demonstrated one possible solution to these types of problems.