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In the frame of an ESA technology program, the development of a High Capacity Grooved Heat Pipe (HGP), based on the thermal requirements of the next generation of telecommunication satellites, was contracted to SABCA. Different promising concepts and methods of groove technology were reviewed. A trade-off and design study was performed on potential HGP concepts, taking into account theoretical performances (on earth and in micro-gravity), ease of manufacturing and of assembly as well as the heat pipe working reliability and priming capability. The two finally selected concepts were aluminium extruded heat pipes (outer diameter of 25 mm, vapour core diameter of 15 mm), based on a multi re-entrant grooves concept or on a mixed rectangular/re-entrant grooves concept.

The paper presents the results of various SABCA activities in the field of two-phase heat transport, being a critical review and analysis of existing capillary pumped loops, the identification of the needs of future capillary pumped two-phase thermal control systems, the development of capillary evaporators, which incorporates nickel porous structures, that can provide a pumping pressure up to 38000 Pa, and the solving of the problem of capillary pump cavitation. These activities have led towards the development of a reliable multi-evaporator/condenser capillary pumped loop, which is discussed in details. A test loop configuration is described. The presented results of various tests clearly prove the viability of the concept for future applications. Proposed flight demonstrations are presented.

This paper presents the last developments which have been performed at SABCA under internal funding, and the application of this work on the Technological Telecommunication Satellite STENTOR. The High Performance Capillary Pumped Loop ( HPCPL ) has been defined to get a reliable operation mode under a very wide range of operation conditions. Preliminary results have been already presented (ref. (1)), showing the high performances and the reliable functional characteristics of the HPCPL. The present paper emphasises the last developments which have been performed at SABCA.