Thermal analysis on Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer main radiators under the flight attitude adjustment of International Space Station

Abstract

Thermal environments of the spaceborne instruments applied for space experiments and space explorations are affected by the maneuvers of the carrier itself, those effects should be taken into account for the designing, manufacturing and long-term stable operation of the spaceborne instruments. In this paper, the mathematical model with three angle variables is established to determine the thermal radiation processes under various attitudes of International Space Station. The results reveal that only the variations of two angles can affect the radiative heat transfer of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer main radiators. Based on that, the thermal impacts of the International Space Station attitude adjustments on the main radiators of Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer are numerically investigated in thermal network method, the variation regularities of the external heat flux and the corresponding temperature response are further determined. Results show that the external heat flux has the largest variation at the extreme β angle with the maximum difference of 384 W/m2 on RAM radiator of Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. After the maneuver of the attitude adjustment, a total of 42% cases have the possibility of temperature anomalies with the occurrence time ranging from 6235 s to 73897 s.