Speaker
Description
Future lunar surface missions require thermal control systems capable of operating across the prolonged temperature extremes associated with the lunar day-night cycle. Unlike orbiters characterized by frequent thermal transitions, lunar surface systems must survive up to fourteen days of constant sunlight followed by 14 days of constant darkness while maintaining critical subsystems within operational and survival temperature limits, Conventional thermal control architectures often struggle to provide adequate control for both these extremes using a single system.
As part of the LUX-Thermal program, Lunar Outpost EU is developing a thermal control mechanism called “Thermal Cover” for providing adaptive heat rejection for lunar surface applications. The Thermal Cover employs a scalable, gravity-independent, radiator- and solar panel-covering mechanism made of rollable Multi-Layer-Insulation (MLI), capable of autonomously modulating heat rejection in response to changing environmental and operational conditions. By regulating surface exposure through an integrated feedback system, the technology enables dynamic adjustment of thermal performance while maintaining a mechanically simple and robust design.
By providing autonomous and variable thermal rejection tailored to the slow thermal cycling characteristics of the lunar environment, the Thermal Cover represents a promising pathway toward resilient and energy-efficient thermal control for future long-duration lunar missions.
Representative breadboards have been successfully tested in laboratory and vacuum environments, including dedicated performance characterization of the MLI and the mechanism functionality. The initial results confirm the feasibility of adaptive thermal rejection using the proposed architecture. A full-scale verification campaign is planned for the coming months to assess system performance, scalability, and operational robustness under mission-relevant conditions.
Moreover, a related mechanism called the “Thermal Curtain” is included in LUX-Thermal and focuses on opening and closing an aperture to a solar receiver cavity, which is used to heat high-temperature phase change material (PCM) that store heat for the system to utilize during the lunar night . Unlike conventional fixed architectures and existing variable thermal control solutions primarily developed for orbital applications, the proposed concept combines adaptive heat rejection, gravity-independent operation, scalability, and autonomous control within a single thermal control element tailored to the unique challenges of the lunar environment.
In addition, LUX-Thermal includes also several Active Thermal Switches (ATS), a compact device which actively changes the thermal conductance on-demand between a heat source and sink from a low to a high value and vice-versa.
All these technologies that are being developed at Lunar Outpost EU reduces excessive heat loss during lunar night while preserving efficient heat rejection during lunar day conditions. This capability has the potential to decrease heater power demand, improve system mass efficiency, and reduce overall thermal subsystem complexity compared with conventional fixed solutions. Owing to its scalability, this technology is applicable also to larger lunar infrastructures, including surface habitats, where parasitic heat losses significantly impact energy budgets during extended periods of darkness.