Thermal control of spaceborne image sensor using heat pipe cooling system

Heat pipe cooling systems are widely used for thermal control in space engineering. From design perspective, they must be designed to ensure structural safety under launch environment and minimize force transmitted to components or structures resulting from thermal deformation of heat pipe in the space. The heat pipe should also provide sufficient thermal capacity to transfer heat from components with high heat dissipation to the radiator. In this study, we examine the heat pipe cooling system for thermal control of the spaceborne image sensor. The efficiency of the heat pipe thermal interface has been verified using numerical simulation and burn-out test of the heat pipe performed in the space simulated vacuum environment. On-orbit thermal analysis has also been performed to evaluate whether the design satisfies temperature requirements for the image sensor. The analysis results show that the proposed heat pipe cooling system guarantees both structural safety and thermal control performance.