Speaker
Description
“Development of a new software tool for thermal analysis of satellite harnesses”
• Ewin Bloem (Royal Netherland Aerospace Centre), edwin.bloem@nlr.nl
• Roel van Benthem (Royal Netherland Aerospace Centre), roel.van.benthem@nlr.nl
The harness sizing for space applications is defined by derating rules that are specified in international standards such as the ECSS-Q-ST-30-11C Rev 1 (ESA, 2011) , “Space Product Assurance, Derating EEE Components”. ESA recently conducted a study led by Airbus DS SAS together with the Royal Netherlands Aerospace Centre NLR to update the ECSS ruleset for wires and bundles in free vacuum. The new ruleset, currently under evaluation in Revision 2, is based on tests done by NLR on single wires and representative bundles, as well as on thermal simulations performed by Airbus DS. The update of the ECSS-Q-ST-30-11C Rev 2 (19 may 2020) significantly reduces uncertainty margins and explicitly allows for the use of thermal simulations. As confirmed by Airbus DS, a reduction of mass and volume of satellite harnesses is already demonstrated in the design process. To optimize spacecraft harness design under the conditions as provided in ECSS-Q-ST-30-11C Rev 2, space companies will be allowed to perform thermal simulations with dedicated space harness evaluation tools. The presentation will focus on the development of a new Satellite HARness Evaluator (SHARE) tool, enabling thermal optimizations for space harness designs. SHARE is based on an existing tool, the Thermal Design Module (TDM), developed by NLR for the thermal analysis of aircraft harnesses. While under vacuum conditions in space, convective analysis is suppressed in SHARE. The validation of SHARE is based on the same ESA study that led to the update of ECSS-Q-ST-30-11 Rev 2. In a future update, convective analysis may be relatively easily included in SHARE, for instance for optimization of rover harnesses designs in a low pressure Co2 atmosphere on Mars.
