Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (Glas) Loop Heat Pipes - An Eventful First Year On-Orbit 2004-01-2558
Goddard Space Flight Center’s Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) is the sole scientific instrument on the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) that was launched on January 12, 2003 from Vandenberg AFB. A thermal control architecture based on propylene Loop Heat Pipe technology was developed to provide selectable/stable temperature control for the lasers and other electronics over the widely varying mission environment.
Following a nominal LHP and instrument start-up, the mission was interrupted with the failure of the first laser after only 36 days of operation. During the 5-month failure investigation, the two GLAS LHPs and the electronics operated nominally, using heaters as a substitute for the laser heat load.
Just prior to resuming the mission, following a seasonal spacecraft yaw maneuver, one of the LHPs deprimed and created a thermal runaway condition that resulted in an emergency shutdown of the GLAS instrument.
This paper presents details of the LHP anomaly, the resulting investigation and recovery, along with on-orbit flight data during these critical events.
Citation: Grob, E., Baker, C., and McCarthy, T., "Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (Glas) Loop Heat Pipes - An Eventful First Year On-Orbit," SAE Technical Paper 2004-01-2558, 2004, https://doi.org/10.4271/2004-01-2558. Download Citation
Author(s):
E. Grob, C. Baker, T. McCarthy
Affiliated:
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Pages: 14
Event:
International Conference On Environmental Systems
ISSN:
0148-7191
e-ISSN:
2688-3627
Related Topics:
Lasers
Altimeters
Architecture
Spacecraft
Satellites
Yaw
Icing and ice detection
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