Mechanical thermal louvers are active thermal control devices that have been used to regulate the area of a radiator in response to its temperature. Shutters and louvers were suggested as a means of thermal control using MEMS for nano and pico satellites. JHU/APL, together with NASA/GSFC and Sandia National Laboratory, developed a MEMS shutter design which was flown on NASA/GSFC’s Space Technology 5 (ST‐5) technology demonstration mission as a variable emittance coating. Fabricated with Sandia’s SUMMIT 5 process, six electrostatic comb drives, using Sandia’s high performance design, will move an array of shutters, each 150 μm long and 6 μm wide, to expose either a gold surface (emissivity < 0.1) or the silicon substrate (emissivity < 0.6). To qualify the MEMS louver, several environmental tests were conducted on the final flight articles. The device needed to pass various performance tests (i.e. vibration, thermal vacuum, EMI/EMC, and magnetics) to verify its survival. In addition, component‐level life cycling tests, performance measurements (both effective IR emissivity and solar absorptivity), and cycling in vacuum (over 1000 times) were conducted. All tests were passed, and ST5 was launched successfully in March 2006. This paper will show the validation results of the flight and discuss lessons learned from MEMS systems in space.
MEMS Shutters for Thermal Control — Flight Validation and Lessons Learned
SPACE TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL FORUM-STAIF 2007: 11th Conf Thermophys.Applic.in Micrograv.; 24th Symp Space Nucl.Pwr.Propulsion; 5th Conf Hum/Robotic Techn & Vision Space Explor.; 5th Symp Space Coloniz.; 4th Symp New Frontrs & Future Con ; 2007 ; Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA)
AIP Conference Proceedings ; 880 , 1 ; 73-80
30.01.2007
8 pages
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
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