Clementine Thermal Design and Verification Testing: Quick, Cheap, Unusual, Successful

The thermal control subsystem design, analysis, and test-verification that made possible the successful Clementine moon-mapping mission was indeed formidable in many respects, with very high ratios of requirements-to-available resources and performance-to-cost/mass, exacerbated by an unyielding tight schedule. Environments, requirements, program restrictions, design highlights, and lessons learned are presented. Emphasis is given to the sensor-bench payload and its unusual thermal components: three types of heat pipes (variable conductance, fixed conductance, and diode), a thermal-energy-storage beryllium block, and a multitude of flexible conducting straps. A description of the thermal design verification test emphasizes its unconventionally and lessons learned. Despite adverse schedule and cost-cutting effects on test hardware, planning, and execution, test data made possible thermal model refinements and important hardware design changes. Flight temperatures of the operating imaging sensors demonstrated success.