Development of High Temperature High Current Contact Technology in Slipring Assemblies for the BepiColombo MPO and MTM Spacecrafts.

摘要

RUAG Space Nyon has been selected to design, develop and test the slipring assemblies of the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Transfer Module (MTM) spacecrafts for ESA s BepiColombo Scientific mission. The exposure of the spacecrafts to the harsh thermal environment of this mission to Mercury has inhibited the use of standard high current contact technology in the design of MPO and MTM cylindrical slipring assemblies. In order to sustain the particularly high thermal requirements resulting from the combination of the thermal environment with the significant thermal dissipation of high current transfer at high temperature, new contact and electrical transfer technologies were developed and tested. Validation tests were performed on breadboard models (BBMs) with flight representative contact system at temperatures ranging from -33 C to +186 C. This paper first presents the new developments integrated in the electric contact system design to meet the simulated thermal environment. It is then followed by a detailed presentation of the objectives and results of the validation tests. Lessons learned and the optimization of the design for the flight configuration are presented in the last sections of this article.