Thermal Design, Testing and Firing Control Strategy of the Liquid Apogee Engine and Thermal Shield Assembly for the ITALSAT Spacecraft

A failure during the Liquid Apogee Engine (LAE) firing with Thermal Shield, forced Selenia Spazio to critically review the thermal design concept of the LAE/Shield Assembly of ITALSAT Program.

This review led to:

• the change of Thermal Shield design criteria (in order to increase the safety margin on the LAE firing temperatures);
• the identification of thermal failure modes of the utilized LAE (together with the contribution of many other US and European LAE utilizers and of LAE Supplier as well);
• the definition and implementation of a LAE Firing Control Strategy.

This Paper describes the performed efforts and the resulting engineering considerations.