Analysis of Salient Events from the Two-Phase Flow (TPF) Thermal Control Flight Experiment

Mathematical model of a loop heat pipe with cylindrical evaporator and integrated reservoir

“…Maidanik [11] reveals the low power limit on start-up and recuperation mode in CPLs. There were several flight missions carrying CPLs as scientific payloads and devoted to investigations of its performance under micro-gravity conditions [12][13][14].…”

Theoretical model for fast bubble growth in small channels with reference to startup of capillary pumped loops used in spacecraft thermal management systems

“…Difficulty with startup has, arguably, been the single greatest factor limiting the wide acceptance of CPLs for thermal management of spacecraft. Startup failures and other system anomalies that can be attributed to incomplete or improper priming have plagued flight experiments [9][10][11][12]. Recently, the CPLbased thermal control system that was designed for the Mars Polar Lander (MPL) of the Mars'98 mission [13] was eliminated from the spacecraft due to the CPL's inability to reliably start during system level testing.…”

Thermal-gravitational modelling, scaling and flow pattern mapping issues of two-phase heat transport systems

“…As two-phase flow characteristics and heat transfer differ when subjected to a i-g or a low-gravity environment, the technology of such two-phase heat transport systems, and their components, has to be demonstrated in orbit. Therefore several in-orbit experiments were recently carried out: TPX I (Delil, 1995(Delil, , 1997, CAPL l&2 (Butler et al, 1996;Ku et al, 1995) LHPFX (Baker et al, 1998) ALPHA and TPF (Ottenstein & Nienberg, 1998;Antoniuk & Nienberg, 1998). Others are planned for near-future spaceflights: TPX II (Deli1 et al, 1997) CAPL 3 (Ku et al, 1998;Kim et al, 1997), STENTOR (Amadieu et al, 1997) CCLP (Hagood, 1998), TEEM (Miller-Hurlbert, 1997, and Granat (Orlov et al, 1997).…”