Thermal modelling of ESA Second Young Engineers Satellite

Paper number

IAC-06-C2.2.09

Author

Mr. Antonios Vavouliotis, University of Patras, Greece

Coauthor

Mr. Angelos Miaris, University of Patras, Greece

Coauthor

Mr. Ricardo Patricio, Active Space Technologies, Portugal

Coauthor

Mr. Michiel Kruijff, Delta-Utec, The Netherlands

Coauthor

Mr. Vasileios Drakonakis, University of Patras, Greece

Coauthor

Prof. Vassilis Kostopoulos, University of Patras, Greece

Year

2006

Abstract

YES2 is a demonstration satellite which will fly attached to Russian scientific Foton-M3. YES2 aims at demonstrating the tethered Space Mail technology, i.e. delivery of a small payload from space using a tethered re-entry capsule. The entire current YES2 system consists of 3 major components:
• FLOYD: Foton LOcated YES2 Deployer, including tether, tether spool, friction tether brake mechanism and ejection system on Foton batterypack as well as control, data and power system inside the Foton capsule (20 kg);
• Fotino: Re-entry capsule (5 kg);
• MASS: Mechanical and data Acquisition Support System (7 kg).
A 30 km, 6 kg tether is deployed from a passive spool into a swinging configuration within some hours time. MASS and Fotino which are ejected with a spring ejection system  are  attached by a tether to FLOYD/Foton. After tether swing back to the vertical in the opposite of the flight direction, Fotino will be released from MASS at a fixed time after ejection from FLOYD/Foton, to lower, through the momentum-transfer effect, the capsule’s perigee by ~13 times the tether length, sufficient to induce a re-entry. This can be done with considerable accuracy and with simple low-cost hardware. 
The final application of the tether technology is foreseen to support the research done on the International Space Station (ISS) or other stations build in the future to deliver samples from space.
The purpose of the thermal analysis of YES2 is to be suitable for the mission and meet the interface requirements imposed by the Foton-M3 carrier. The satellite must also be suitably designed to control the heat paths and the high heat dissipations throughout its mission. 
In the work presented in this paper, a lumped parameter thermal network model of 166 nodes was created in order to model the YES2 sattelite. The software used was Alstom ThermXL. The worst case scenarios and corresponding steady state cases, the applied thermal loads, the thermal budget and the temperatures are presented and discussed. The transient results of YES2’s two week mission are also presented. 

Abstract document

IAC-06-C2.2.09.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-06-C2.2.09.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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