RADIATION BELT STORM PROBES SPACECRAFT THERMAL VACUUM TESTING

摘要

This paper will document the spacecraft level thermal vacuum testing of the Radiation Belt StormProbes (RBSP) program. The RBSP program is a NASA sponsored dual spacecraft mission to explore theVan Allen Radiation Belts. APL has developed the two nearly identical spacecraft and has successfullycompleted the thermal balance and thermal cycle vacuum tests. The spacecraft were placed one in each ofthe two large vacuum chambers at APL’s Space Simulation Laboratory. The two spacecraft were subjectedto 9 days of on-orbit thermal simulations, to not only validate the spacecraft thermal design, but obtain thedata to correlate the thermal models. The two spacecraft were subsequently exposed to 30 days of thermalvacuum cycling to validate the spacecraft workmanship and verify that the spacecraft are ready for flight.This paper will discuss the test setup, present the results from each phase of the test and summarize the fewanomalies that occurred during the test.