This paper reports on the approach followed for the TCS verification of the payload AMS-02 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer), aiming at the qualification of the entire system, in steps, for the space environment. AMS-02 is a state-of-the-art experiment composed by a stack of seven different particle detectors, each of them having its own electronics and control equipments. It will be installed on the International Space Station Starboard segment S3 of the main Truss, and will be a 6500 kg payload, with a power consumption of 2000 W.
The verification philosophy is driven by the need to qualify the flight hardware and by the necessary confirmation and correlation of the thermal mathematical models, based on experimental data. The hardware used on AMS-02 is derived from the state-of-the-art ground based detectors for high energy physics, hence not yet proven for operations in vacuum and in extreme thermal environment.
The foreseen verification level criteria will be described in the paper, together with the tested items, that will be either Qualification Models or Flight Models.