- Gain knowledge about thermal engineering for spacecraft and space exploration - Know how to solve thermal models - Understand and use thermal software common in spacecraft engineering - Gain hands-on experience with thermal-vacuum tests - Collect and interpret experimental data - Correlate experimental data with simulations

This course introduces the topic spacecraft thermal analysis and test. Students will learn about the basics of heat transfer in space and planetary environments and how to set up and solve thermal models of spacecraft. The basics will be practised by creating example models using the software Matlab, before moving on to the commercial software Thermal Desktop. Using this software, the students will create a detailed thermal model of a demonstration object (nanosatellite, rover, or spacecraft component; existing as real hardware) over the course of several weeks. After finishing the model and the simulation of different analysis cases, the demonstrator hardware will be prepared by the students for testing in the laboratory. The subsequent thermal-vacuum test will be monitored and the results analysed by the students. The acquired data will be used to correlate the thermal model build in Thermal Desktop. The course therefore covers all thermal development and qualification steps common for spacecraft and components in space exploration. At the end of the course, there will be a written exam.

Basics of spacecraft technology

The theoretical part will be done in small groups and the thermal-vacuum test will be performed in the lab. Over the course of the semester the students will write a documentation about the modelling and test processes.

Course accompanying documentation and written exam