A Modelica Library for Spacecraft Thermal Analysis

Abstract

In spacecraft missions it is vital to maintain all spacecraft components within their required temperature limits. Thus, a model incorporating all main heat fluxes acting on the spacecraft is necessary to allow for the design of a thermal control subsystem. This paper introduces the thermal space systems library which implements common models of radiation and thermal components of a spacecraft. Special effort is put into the calculations of the angles describing the orientation of the spacecraft with respect to sun and earth. Issues occurring due to the recalculation of the angles in each time step are shown and methods for their determinations are given.