Thermal Control Design of TUSAT

TUSAT is Turkish Communication Satellite, providing mainly communication and TV services using C-band and Ku-band channels. This paper describes the thermal control design which uses passive and active concepts. The active thermal control is based on heaters regulated by software via thermistors. The passive thermal control composes of heat pipes, multi-layer insulation (MLI) blankets and radiators, paints, surface finishes to maintain temperature level of the overall carrier components within an acceptable value. The thermal control design is supported by thermal analysis using thermal mathematical models (TMM).