Operations of the thermal control system for Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer electronics following the beta angle of the International Space Station

摘要

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) has been running and measuring cosmic rays on the International Space Station (ISS) since May 19, 2011. The thermal control system (TCS) plays an important role in keeping all components and equipment working in an operational temperature range. Since the AMS started working on the ISS, AMS thermal engineers have been monitoring the on-orbit status of the TCS. During normal operation, the local temperature of AMS components regularly varies along with the β angle of the ISS. Based on the collected temperature data, the general characteristics of local temperature variations of TCS for AMS Electronics following the β of the ISS are discussed with the statistics of the orbit-averaged temperature and the orbit standard deviation of temperature. Furthermore some temperature anomalies at specific β are also studied.