Nano Satellite GNC Sub-system Thermal Vacuum Test

Abstract

Thermal vacuum test is an important means of verifying the reliability of spaceborne units in space environments. Usually, the same type of spaceborn units are subjected to thermal vacuum test according to the specified test conditions before integrated into subsystem. This traditional thermal test methods cannot meet the requirements of Nano satellites in terms of timeliness and cost, which feature low cost and short manufacturing cycle. In order to reduce the cost under the premise of ensuring the quality, this paper proposes a overall thermal test method for GNC sub-system of Nano satellites to replace the original individual thermal tests. This paper first demonstrates the effectiveness of the thermal test, and then proposes the criteria for controlling the thermal test conditions of the sub-system based on the existing standard system. A satellite GNC sub-system is taken as an example to introduce its thermal vacuum test scheme. Test result shows that thermal mutual interference of DUTs can be eliminated by multi-zone temperature control and adopting different PID parameters for different kinds of units under test, even if their thermal response characteristics vary, which proves the validity of the test scheme designed.