Critical components of certain instruments carried on orbiting satellites must be cooled to cryogenic temperatures. For long duration requirements, the choice of cooling methods often narrows to either passive radiators or closed cycle cryogenic refrigerators. This paper outlines the general capabilities of these two methods. Weight and exposed area are compared for the passive radiators and for the refrigerator systems which include solar arrays and heat rejection radiators. With different cooling loads, crossover points exist such that refrigerator systems have lower weight and less exposed area when temperatures below about 65 K are needed. Examination of available data, for orbits which are favorable to radiators, indicates that the system weight cross-over points change from 67 K for a 0.1 watt cooling load to 94 K for a ten watt cooling load so that refrigerator systems become more attractive as required cooling capability increases. This is influenced by better refrigerator efficiency in the larger sizes. (DePo)
Ranges of application for cryogenic radiators and refrigerators on space satellites
Anwendungsbereich fuer kryogenische Strahler und Kuehler in Raumfahrzeugen
AIAA-Papers ; Jan ; 1-6
1979
6 Seiten, 7 Bilder, 12 Quellen
Conference paper
English
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