Predicting radiative properties of spacecraft body substrates

• Main Author: Yap, Wai Teng.
• Other Authors: Sunil Chandrakant Joshi
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Aeronautical engineering::Materials of construction
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/17191
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Numerous artificial satellites have been launched for the purposes of scientific, military, and commercial missions since the invention of it. Among them, micro-satellites are rapidly growing importantly in scientific and commercial realities because they provide shorter development times, smaller budgets and can achieve many of the functions of their larger counterparts – cheaper and effective. Since the thermal control subsystem is crucial for micro-satellites, viewing of reduction in space usage and mass, the passive thermal control methods are adopted. However, conventional thermal control materials (TCMs) used in satellites tends to deteriorate in the severe space environment, often leading to unanticipated mission problems. New and better TCMs are thus constantly sought after to reduce difficulties in satellite thermal design. Besides, the impacts of regular patterns of surface geometry creating roughness on the radiative properties are a topic of research interest. During the investigation on the impacts of regular patterns of surface geometry on the radiative properties, there is another interesting question that opted to be solved. Would the size of the patterns (macro, micro or nano) further influence the radiative properties? As such, in this thesis, by using some C programs and with the 2D surface profile obtained by using Talyscan 150 instrument, the possible impacts of the regular patterns are investigated.