Development and Test of a Heatpipe Cooling System for High Dissipating TWT's

Travelling Wave Tubes (TWT) and klystrons respectively are two of the most important components for communication and earth research spacecraft. Actual requirements have led to TWT's with a heat dissipation up to 600 W (≃ 350 W RF).

High dissipating tubes possess usually a selfradiating collector, which does not allow to locate the amplifiers within the payload module. With respect to the requirements of a typical communication S/C TWT with a total dissipation energy of about 500 W, a completely conduction cooled system with heatpipes was developed and tested. The amplifiers can thus be located within the payload module, the heat-pipes being connected to the S/C radiator panel.