Lunar IceCube: Development of Thermal Management System

Design of a thermal control system for Lunar IceCube faced several challenges. Firstly, components have vastly different requirements for operational temperature range and heat dissipation. Secondly, the spacecraft does not have enough external surface to reject waste heat by traditionally designed thermal control system. Thirdly, integration of components into a single thermal control system represents a challenge due to several factors: namely, thermal interference between components due to high packing density; incompatibility of some components which are made by different vendors. The paper discusses a successful solution of the mentioned above problems. It shows that customization of thermal control systems for each group of components with similar thermal requirements enables successful resolution of thermal challenges.