A technique is presented to test heat pipe equipped spacecraft under any operational sun angle and orientation without adversely affecting the S/C power and temperature distribution that can occur when heat pipes are tilted in a 1-g test environment. The proposed technique is based on a specially designed heater system to simulate the heat pipe performance (i.e. distribution of thermal flux and temperature). The heater system employs temperature predictions generated by computer simulation and a mathematical correlation of the performance of real and simulated heat pipes when operated similarly in a horizontal position.


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    Title :

    A Heat Pipe Simulation Technique for Spacecraft Thermal Testing Under Variable Orientation


    Additional title:

    Sae Technical Papers


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    Intersociety Conference on Environmental Systems ; 1982



    Publication date :

    1982-02-01




    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English