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The thermal control concept of the Huygens probe must be designed for extremely hot and cold environmental conditions, which occur during the journey to Saturn's moon Titan. This task requires numerous analyses for the different mission phases. The paper presents the current thermal design of the probe and explains the thermal model structure as well as the different design cases which are taken into account in the analyses. Results of nominal calculations are presented for hot and cold cases and the Descent phase, which is the crucial mission period. The sensitivity of unit temperatures to different design parameters is plotted for the vacuum cases and a failure scenario is studied for the Descent phase.

Multiscreen insulations, which consist of highly reflecting foils separated by a fibrous insulation, are being studied for space applications. For design purposes the heat transfer mechanisms through absorbing, emitting and scattering porous materials must be understood and efficient tools for analytical temperature predictions are required. In order to calculate the heat fluxes through evacuated fibrous insulations, different methods are explained and compared. Consideration is given to a one-dimensional system of two parallel, diffuse gray plates, which are separated by a fibrous insulation. The coupling of solid conduction and radiation is specially taken into account.