Search Results

The Automated Transfer Vehicle will provide ISS with reboost, attitude control functions, with water, gas and propellant and with dry cargo. It remains attached up to 6 months before a destructive reentry. In summer 2002, a Thermal Balance Test has been performed with the STM in the LSS test chamber. The objectives were: To correlate the TMM in flight conditions To validate the active TCS performances of AFCU To validate the passive TCS of Spacecraft and EEB This paper deals with the set-up, the means and the sequence implemented for this test and the main results obtained from test measurements and exploitation.

The Equipped Avionics Bay of the Automated Transfer Vehicle is thermally controlled by means of ten Active Fluidic Cooling Units (AFCU), each of them being composed of four Variable Conductance Heat Pipes (VCHP). In spring 2002, a thermal test in vacuum chamber has been performed with one AFCU subsystem. The objectives were: To characterize the thermal behavior To tune the control architecture To validate the AFCU modeling This paper deals with the set-up, the means and the sequence implemented for this test and the main results obtained from test measurements and exploitation.