Thermal design of the ESA Solar Orbiter instrument PHI

Date

2016-07-10

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

46th International Conference on Environmental Systems

Abstract

The instrument PHI (Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager) of the ESA Solar Orbiter mission consists of an optical unit that includes two telescopes, and one electronics unit. The Solar Orbiter mission is quite challenging from a thermal point of view, as both platform and instruments have to cope with a large amount of solar energy. The high eccentricity of the orbit, with the perihelion at 0.28 AU and the aphelion at 1.5 AU, together with the complex optical design make the thermal design quite difficult, as it has to be able to operate both in hot and cold environments. PHI optics unit is mounted internally on the spacecraft platform and is thermally insulated from it. The thermal loads onto the instrument parts, which include the solar flux, the infrared radiation from the hot entrance feed-through, and the power dissipated by the electronics have to be evacuated to space through three small hot conductive interfaces that transfer heat to the spacecraft radiators. An additional cold conductive interface is dedicated to cool down the camera detector. In this work we present the thermal problems encountered in the design process, and the solutions found to have an instrument design feasible from the thermal point of view. The instrument successfully passed the Critical Design Review, the qualification model is already manufactured and the flight model will be completed by 2016.

Description

Spain
Germany
Universidad Politecnica de Madrid
Max Planck Institut für Sonnensystemforschung
101
ICES101: Spacecraft and Instrument Thermal Systems
Vienna, Austria
G. Fernández-Rico, Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, Germany
I. Torralbo, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
G. Alonso, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
A. Gómez-Sanjuan, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
I. Pérez Grande, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
The 46th International Conference on Environmental Systems was held in Vienna, Austria, USA on 10 July 2016 through 14 July 2016.

Keywords

ESA Solar Orbiter, instrument thermal control, space thermal modelling

Citation