A ground-based test method for active thermal control system in spaceship

Active thermal control system, which performs heat collection, heat transfer and heat dissipation for the whole spacecraft, plays important part in thermal design. In this paper, a ground-based test method was presented to investigate a single-phase fluid loop in spacecraft, which simultaneously accounted for flow resistance and heat transfer characteristics of fluid in the loop. The system consisted of model loop, cold source and data acquisition module . The main emphasis was to realistically simulate the radiator in space flight with low cost. A counter-flow heat exchanger together with cryogenic refrigerator was used to act as radiator for the whole loop. The heaters were put on cold plates as heat loads. Experimental results showed that this method fully simulated the loop in real flight condition. Both temperature and pressure agreed well with flight data. Based on this system, the performance of fluid loop could be conveniently studied in design-phase without thermal balance and thermal vacuum test, which decreased dramatically the cost and time of spacecraft development.