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The reduction of thermal models of instruments is one of the typical activities of the thermal engineer that are often performed at the end of TCS design activities in order to provide a simplified model for analysis at higher level. For these reasons, this activity has to be carried out the most efficiently and rapidly as possible. The paper presents the reduction process applied to the thermal model of the IRES N2 instrument of GALILEO AVIONICA Firenze that has been performed at BLUE GROUP Turin. The process is based on an automatic iterative procedure that involves a stochastic optimisation for generating the final reduced thermal mathematical model.

Correlations between Thermal Models and ground tests results are a critical step in the project; in fact they are compressed between manufacturing and launch, and often the allocated time for this activity is reduced to compensate delays or constraints from the other phases. The paper presents the use of the Stochastic Design Improvement technique to reduce the effort necessary to the correlation activity.

Feasibility and preliminary phases of space projects are aimed to answer to the very fundamental question whether a spacecraft (S/C) exists that can fulfil the mission objectives. In particular the thermal engineers must assess whether a possible configuration is feasible from the thermal point of view, or what modifications could make it suitable. The paper presents the Thermal Concept Design Tool (TCDT), a new software tool under development at Blue Engineering and Alenia Spazio for the European Space Agency (ESA), designed with the objective to assist the thermal engineers in reducing at minimum the effort required by simulation activities and focusing mainly on conceptual activities during feasibility and preliminary studies.

Stochastic method is being used in several domains for design optimisation, but its application to spacecraft thermal control design is not yet consolidated. The paper presents an assessment of this technique applied to spacecraft thermal control design, made by Blue Engineering and Alenia Spazio under ESA contract, with the objective to assess the applicability of the method, the requirements for its implementation, the effects on the design process.