5 - Thermal radiation heat transfer

Abstract

This chapter presents the basics of thermal radiation necessary for the thermal modelling of spacecraft. The nature of thermal radiation is briefly described while the concept of blackbody and the Planck’s distribution, describing the spectral emissive power of a blackbody, are presented. The thermo-optical properties of a surface, emissivity, absorptance, transmittance and reflectance, are defined, and the equations necessary to determine the radiation exchange between diffuse, grey surfaces are obtained and written in terms of thermal resistances to apply the electrical analogy.