Design Analysis and Verification of Thermal Control Subsystem for the CKUTEX Microsatellite

This paper illustrates the thermal control of CKUTEX (Cheng-Kung University Technology Experiment) satellite, the microsatellite which is developed at National Cheng Kung University. The goal is to effectively control temperature of electrical devices in a reasonable range to avoid thermal failure or thermal damage. Different from some existing approaches of using special thermal control materials or sophisticated cooling/heating devices, this paper proposes a passive thermal control method by addressing the placement of devices through comprehensive structure design, in addition the verification with thermal analysis and environment test is also discussed. The predicted temperature of each subsystem can be simulated by ANSYS also inter the data which calculate for considering solar flux, albedo and earth infrared that from the space environment, also concern the satellite structure material and contact each component. According to these results, the corresponding passive thermal control strategy of CKUTEX is applied. Before the environment test, the simulation of whole system is executed to predict temperature range of each subsystem. The thermal verification test plays an important role in making sure the mission operation in the space.