AMS-02 Radiators Thermal Model Correlation Using in Air Test

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) is a particle physics detector designed to be installed on the International Space Station for at least 3 years, in order to measure charged cosmic rays, and to search for dark matter, missing matter and antimatter. The silicon Tracker is the centre of AMS. It measures particle trajectories through AMS-02 strong magnetic field with a micron accuracy.

The heat dissipated by the whole experiment is rejected to deep space by means of four radiators [4–5]: the two Tracker radiators assure the heat dissipation for the above mentioned silicon Tracker, and the two Main radiators reject to space all the heat dissipated by the power, command and control units. The four radiators have been designed, analyzed by means of detailed thermal mathematical models and finally constructed and tested.

This paper focuses on the thermal mathematical models tuning to best fit the provided test data. A brief presentation of behavior of the radiator (especially heat pipes) during the different phases of the test is also presented.