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The European Polar Platform is a remote sensing satellite with the primary objective, in the ENVISAT-1 P/L configuration, to monitor and study the earth and its environment. The platform thermal design is passive assisted by heaters. Externally mounted P/Ls are responsible for their-own thermal control and are required to be thermally decoupled from the platform. The P/L thermal design is largely dependent on their detectors required temperature and stability. A wide range of design solutions is found: Stirling cycle coolers, Peltier elements, passive radiant coolers, heat pipe radiators. This paper describes the overall thermal design of the platform and the P/Ls, the principles of the selected ENVISAT-1 P/L accommodation, the relevant P/L to platform I/F design solutions and outlines the platform and P/Ls thermal verification logic.

The ESA Polar Platform, as part of the ESA Columbus Development Programme, is scheduled to be launched as single passenger by an Ariane 5 vehicle in mid 1998. The multimission platform is designed to accommodate a wide range of payload complements to be flown on a series of missions in order to satisfy the growing future earth observation needs in continuation of the current ERS programme. Multi-mission capability is achieved by design modularity wherever feasible and cost-effective. This paper describes the thermal control design of the Polar Platform which follows its modular configuration and which has to cope with a wide range of generic performance parameters, whilst being adaptable to provide optimised performance for specific missions. Special thermal control features are highlighted as the software and hardware controlled heater systems, thermal doublers using carbon / carbon material and the battery compartment heat pipe radiator.