Numerical investigation on the thermal performance of Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer main radiators under the operation of International Space Station

Abstract

The thermal environment of the space-borne instruments can be affected by their carriers. Investigation on those thermal effects has great importance for those payloads operating safely and stably. In the current work, the influences of the operation of International Space Station flight attitude adjustment on the thermal performance of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer main radiators are studied by numerical simulations. For that purpose, the thermal network model is developed and validated by the theoretical calculation from the mathematical model, based on which, the external heat flux absorbed and the temperature response characteristics under the three most frequent attitude adjustments are further studied. By the results, the error between the two models is less than 18.2% which proves the validation of the developed numerical model. The external heat flux varies obviously when changing the flight attitude and even reaches its maximum of 480 W/m2. The temperatures respond accordingly and may even cause the temperature anomalies in 44.8% of the selected cases with the minimum occurrence time of 6235 s. Moreover, the areas with the most drastic temperature variations are always located at the upper-right and the bottom positions of AMS main radiators, which is independent of the flight attitude adjustment.