Speaker
Description
The Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) is a key element of the Mars Sample Return (MSR) Mission, a joint effort by NASA and ESA to achieve the physical return of samples from Mars. One of the critical systems on MSR-ERO is the High Gain Antenna (HGA), responsible for direct-to-Earth communication of the highest data volume, which will be pointed towards the ground station using an Antenna Pointing Mechanism (APM). The size of the HGA and external location on the satellite are leading to a challenging thermal environment of the APM including interface temperatures between -122°C and 86°C.
The highly varied scenarios that are part of the MSR-ERO mission (journey to Mars, orbital operations around Mars and the return journey) yield a diverse set of boundary conditions of over 50 thermal cases to be adhered to with both critical cold and hot cases driving the design choices. To accommodate these boundary conditions a multitude of thermal design measures had to be combined with particular attention on the actuators, which are highly sensitive to temperature variations.
The demanding technical requirements were further intensified by the project being based on pre-existing designs to limit the development efforts. The presentation outlines the development of the thermal design of the APM, with a specific focus on the accommodation of the actuator’s thermal needs.
