A Study on Chamber Wall Effect in the Satellite Thermal Balance Test

Abstract

The wall of thermal vacuum chamber which is used for the satellite thermal balance test doesn't absorb satellite's IR emission perfectly and reflects some part of that. It is estimated that small thermal vacuum chamber has relatively larger wall effect than the big one. The small thermal vacuum chamber is required for the small satellite test to reduce the test cost. A quantitative analysis was carried out to investigate the chamber wall effect. As a result, temperature errors caused by chamber wall effect was calculated, and the temperature data acquired in the thermal balance test have been compensated. By defining the optimized area ratio between chamber surface and satellite surface area, the baseline to be able to determine the minimum size of thermal vacuum chamber was established to minimize the wall effect. Also, theoretical analysis about transparent material coating which can reduce the chamber wall effect is conducted