Study arid Design of a Heat Rejection System for Advanced Spacecraft and Payload Thermal Control

The Thermal Control System (TCS) of advanced spacecraft, derived from the European Spacelab, shall fulfill extremely demanding requirements in terms of heat rejection capability and operational flexibility. Aeritalia, under a European Space Agency (ESA) contract, has performed several studies providing a general survey of advanced spacecraft and their heat rejection systems; suitable concepts have been investigated, analyzed and selected and requirements have been defined for deeper study and design. A Technology Demonstration Model (TDM) representative in terms of applicable software and hardware of a selected reference heat rejection system has been designed by Aeritalia and will be tested in a later phase with the aim of assessing the performance and validating the utilized technology. This paper summarizes all the study phases from the survey to the reference system definition, the rationale for selection and the description of the design for the TDM, whose development and manufacturing is nearing completion at Aeritalia.