Thermal Performance Characterization of Battery Insulation on ATL-1Picosatellite Mission

Abstract

The ATL-1 2PQ format picosatellite was a collaborative experiment involving two private companies, H-ION Research, Development and Innovation Ltd. and ATL cPlc., along with the Budapest University of Technology and Economics and the Eotvos Lorand University. This mission spanned approximately 10 months during which ATL-1 orbited in low Earth orbit. The aim of the project was the development of functional test used for the thin-layer insulation of the batteries. Three different, aluminium oxide-based, specially structured newly developed and manufactured thermal insulation materials were used to insulate the batteries. These three materials were as follows: porous fibre, composite, and cryogel, in addition to the Kapton foil used as reference material. The primary objective of this study was to investigate the thermal behaviour of these experimental materials in relevant space environment and to identify the most effective insulating material. The temperature cycling resulted in by orbiting the Earth were also investigated. Thermal insulating intensity of the materials was also determined from the temperature dataset to identify the most effective thermal insulator. Results show that porous fibre consistently outperformed the other materials on each side of the batteries, in agreement with the results of the pre-flight laboratory tests. The study also includes an analysis of the response time of the temperature to the appearance and disappearance of solar irradiation. Behaviour of this quantity is also correlated strongly with the materials of better thermal characteristics.