Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) Concept
About
The Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) is the ESA's contribution to the Mars Sample Return Mission
As part of a team of 10 students in our Spacecraft Design Course, my goal was to design a thermal control system that can withstand the extremes of space and meet the operational temperature requirements of all spacecraft subsystems
Our PDR and written report was presented to industry experts at the end of the course
Thermal Design
Designing the thermal control subsystem is an iterative process, as requirements change throughout development. A master and control spreadsheet were used to manage each parameter.
Passive thermal control components such as multi- layered insulation and radiator panels were used.
Active thermal control components such as louvers and electrical heating elements were used where passive components were insufficient .
Thermal FEA with Cubesat Payloads
Similar to MarCO in the Mars Insight Mission, the payload included two CubeSats, which have a significantly higher specific power than the main spacecraft
Used Thermal Finite Element Methods to model this unique challenge and determine component placement, radiator use, and heater power.
This resulted in an increased cold extreme temperature by 11˚C on chassis components.
To meet the operational requirements of the cold gas propulsion system, the spacecraft warm extreme
Future work could use Thermal Desktop to model transient thermal effects between day and eclipse states in the orbit.