Satellite Thermal Modeling and Analysis with the Electrical Network Method

The responsibility of the satellite thermal control system is to maintain equipments temperature in all external environments and under operational modes within an allowable temperature range. The geometric math model of satellite with available relations in references is obtained and certified with Thermal Desktop software. The outputs of geometric math model are external heating rates and radiation interchange factors. In this paper, the electrical simulation method is proposed as a tool for thermal math model of rotating satellite as equipments and structure of satellite are divided into several nodes and each term of thermal balance equation is simulated with equivalent electrical elements (capacitor, resistance, current source and etc.) and obtained circuit is solved fast and easily with HSPICE code. The values of voltage and current in each node are equivalent to temperature and heat flux, respectively. The results are illustrated the low run time with exact temperature responses of electrical simulation method in thermal modeling of satellite. By using the semi active thermal control, the thermal requirements are achieved and the effect of radiator paint is investigated.