Previous Orbital Stirling generator designs rely on the spacecraft mounting structure to fasten the radiators, the converters, and the heat source assembly. This paper describes a self-supporting generator concept with a 1-piece honeycomb panel serving as a radiator and a rigid platform for the converters and the heat source assembly to be bolted on. This self-supporting generator allows for simpler mounting structure and more options on mounting location. Using this self-supporting generator concept, we derived four different design options to connect the converter pair rigidly to reduce vibration. This paper describes the four design options and their assembly procedure.
Self-supporting radioisotope generators with STC-55W Stirling converters
SPACE TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL FORUM - 2000 ; 2000 ; Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA)
AIP Conference Proceedings ; 504 , 1 ; 1242-1251
2000-01-19
10 pages
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
Self-Supporting Radioisotope Generators With STC-55W Stirling Converters
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