Articulable Sunshield for Spacecraft Thermal Management
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional spacecraft designs face challenges in managing thermal loads on temperature-sensitive components due to seasonal and diurnal solar exposure, leading to design constraints such as yaw flip strategies and the use of deadweight solar sails, which are not suitable for all payloads.
Innovation Solution
An articulable sunshield that rotates about a pitch axis to shade temperature-sensitive components, such as radiators and low noise amplifiers, from solar radiation and backloads, maintaining a constant center of gravity through mechanical coupling with a counterweight and transitioning from a launch to an on-orbit configuration.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Temperature
If a seasonal yaw flip strategy is used to reduce solar exposure, then thermal loads on radiators are reduced, but antenna coverage patterns change unacceptableably
Solution Approach 1:
The spacecraft is segmented into functional zones with the sunshield creating a dedicated thermal protection zone. The sunshield is positioned to protect specific components (radiators, sensitive equipment) without requiring the entire spacecraft to reorient, thus maintaining antenna coverage while managing thermal loads on specific segments.
Solution Approach 2:
The sunshield acts as an intermediary element between the Sun and the spacecraft components. It provides thermal protection to radiators and sensitive equipment by blocking solar radiation, while allowing the spacecraft body to maintain its fixed orientation for antenna coverage.
2Stability of the object's composition
If a solar sail is added to balance solar torque, then rotational balance is achieved, but deadweight is added without added capabilities
Solution Approach 1:
The sunshield is designed to serve multiple functions: it provides thermal protection for radiators and sensitive components, and simultaneously acts as a counterbalancing element to manage solar torque. This eliminates the need for a dedicated solar sail that would only provide torque balance.
Solution Approach 2:
The thermal protection function and the torque balance function are merged into a single component - the sunshield. By positioning and sizing the sunshield appropriately, it provides both thermal shielding and rotational balance, eliminating the need for separate components.
3Adaptability or versatility
If the spacecraft orientation is fixed for antenna coverage, then communication performance is maintained, but thermal management of radiators becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The sunshield serves as an intermediary that provides thermal protection to radiators without requiring the spacecraft to change its orientation. It blocks solar radiation from reaching the radiators and sensitive components while allowing the spacecraft to maintain its fixed position for optimal antenna coverage.
Solution Approach 2:
Thermal protection is applied locally to specific components that require it (radiators, sensitive equipment) rather than requiring the entire spacecraft to reorient. The sunshield is positioned to provide targeted shading to these specific areas while leaving other parts of the spacecraft unaffected.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This solution reduces thermal loads on sensitive components, eliminating the need for seasonal yaw flips and deadweight solar sails, thereby simplifying spacecraft design and improving thermal management, with a maximum daily thermal load reduction of up to 95 Watts per meter squared.
Implementation Method 1
The sunshield may be configured to rotate about an axis substantially parallel to the pitch axis such that a selected location of an exterior portion of the body is shaded from the Sun by a surface of the sunshield
Implementation Method 2
the sunshield may be mechanically coupled with a counterweight that rotates with the sunshield such that a center of gravity of the spacecraft remains substantially constant during rotation of the sunshield
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques for articulating a sunshield to shade portions of a spacecraft are disclosed. In one aspect, a spacecraft includes a body and an articulable sunshield. The spacecraft is configured to operate in an orbital plane, such that the spacecraft has a yaw axis within the orbital plane and directed from a spacecraft coordinate system origin toward nadir, a pitch axis orthogonal to the orbital plane and passing through the spacecraft coordinate system origin, and a roll axis orthogonal to the pitch axis and the yaw axis and passing through the spacecraft coordinate system origin. The sunshield is configured to rotate about an axis substantially parallel to the pitch axis such that a selected location of an exterior portion of the body is shaded from the Sun by a surface of the sunshield irrespective of seasonal and diurnal variations in orientation of the spacecraft with respect to the Sun.