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This paper discusses the capabilities of the ABLAT software which has been developed by ERC and Dornier for the European Space Agency. The software provides an ablation modelling capability for the ESATAN thermal analyser and consists of two sections: i. A stand-alone preprocessor allowing specification of the ablation model. This has both an X11/OSF Motif and a command line interface. ii. An integrated solver capability within the ESATAN system, allowing transient analysis of an ablating surface in conjunction with a standard thermal model. After a brief overview of the major aims of the development, the software is discussed from two main points of view, the user interface facilities (how the user defines the model to the system), and the calculation facilities (what can be calculated, and how are these calculations performed).

For the past three decades spacecraft thermal analysis has been predominantly performed using lumped parameter solvers such as ESATAN and SINDA. This paper reports on the development of algorithms which allow the automatic generation of ESATAN/SINDA input files from finite element models. These input files contain the conductive and radiative links together with the solar, planet and albedo heat fluxes. The use of these algorithms therefore provides the opportunity to reduce the time taken to generate ESATAN/SINDA files and to postprocess results easily using widely available packages. In addition it allows the incorporation of thermal analysis into the concurrent engineering practices which are now being introduced.

ESATAN, a thermal network solver, and ESARAD, a radiative analysis preprocessor, are now used widely throughout the European community for performing satellite thermal analysis. Although these serve the community well it is time to look ahead at the next generation of thermal analysis tool. This paper addresses the problems inherent in the present thermal analysis tools and proposes a specification of a new tool to be developed over the next four years. The major aims of the proposed tool are to provide; complete node and conductor generation, integration of the radiative and thermal analysis processes, a simple interface to other analysis disciplines and a complete and intuitive graphical user interface.