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The European Polar Platform is a remote sensing satellite with the primary objective in the ENVISAT-1 Payload configuration to monitor and study the earth and its environment. The platform thermal design is passive, assisted by heaters. The ENVISAT-1 Payload consists of several instruments which are responsible for their own thermal control and are required to be thermally decoupled from the platform. ENVISAT-1 platform thermal analyses are performed at various levels: system module instrument unit/subassembly The paper describes a typical system thermal analysis campaign in terms of: geometrical and mathematical models used configurations (e.g. stowed, deployed appendages) and attitudes (e.g. nominal, safe mode) analysed analysis content and results Specific aspects of the system analyses are discussed e.g. complexity of system model which is an assembly of several models established by different companies.

The Polar Platform is a multi-mission platform designed to operate from low earth polar orbits. Its purpose is to accommodate and support various instrument complements dedicated to meteorology, earth observation and science. In its first mission configuration, ENVISAT-1, dedicated to earth observation, the lower three sections of the Payload Module represent the Payload Equipment Bay (PEB), which houses the payload support subsystem units and various payload instrument electronics equipment. All units are mounted on to the internal faces of the PEB CFRP honeycomb side panels. The PEB thermal design is basically passive, assisted by heaters and in general uses conventional techniques. However, thermal doublers, used to spread high heat fluxes over a greater area are made for the first time from carbon/carbon. This material matches the low coefficient of thermal expansion of the CFRP panels and at the same time provides the high thermal conductivity required for this application.