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The market pressure towards compression of costs and schedule time affects all the programs activities. For the campaigns of thermal verification in particular, this trend results in the recurring request for shorter and inexpensive test verification campaigns. This paper presents the Thales Alenia Space-Italia experience in the field of the thermal balance tests, by comparing the test philosophies and approaches followed on various Navigation and Earth Observation satellites, for which TAS-I was fully responsible of the thermal control and of the relevant verification. The objectives of the comparison are to highlight the critical choices and the relevant lessons learnt in the test definition process, and to promote the standardization and optimization of the thermal verification campaigns, with particular regard to: Evaluation of the uncertainty confidence level and of its evolution along the program cycle.

This paper describes a multidisciplinary strategy for designing and preliminary sizing of advanced life support systems for space applications, ranging from open-loop solutions to more advanced physico-chemical and bioregenerative systems. The strategy, based on the use of transient simulation, heuristic techniques, and realtime integrated control has been implemented into a Matlab-Simulink tool, letting large numbers of system configurations to be rapidly tested and evaluated. The tool has been built aiming to easy expandability and updating. The optimization approach for selection of design solutions is based on a MOPSO (Multi Objective Particle Swarm Optimization) algorithm, which presented optimum convergence properties. Different test cases have been considered, both to evaluate tool's capacity to select proper life support system configurations, and to verify sizing accuracy.

The on-orbit performance verification of the functions constituting a Space Manned System is one of the critical points of space projects. During phase C/D of Node 2 & 3 and ATV Space station modules, the Alcatel Alenia Space - Italia approach for the verification of the design requirements related to the correct air distribution inside the Module habitable volume was to use a CFD virtual mock-up, derived by CAD models. These models were correlated with existing on ground ventilation tests and were extensively used during the project phase to evaluate the impact on the relevant ventilation requirements of possible internal module layout changes and item relocations. This paper describes the developed tool capability and presents the results obtained in support to the Assembly, Integration and Test (AIT) phases.

A significant effort has been conducted in 2007 by TAS-I (Thales Alenia Space Italia) to adequately prepare the Engineering Support to Mission 1E (Columbus installation) and subsequent stages for ECLSS operational support. This activity has been conducted both in the frame of the Engineering Support Team (EST) responsibilities and in the frame of the Columbus/Payloads integrated Stage analyses. Among the various tasks, two has been identified as outstanding: The building of a Computional Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model of Columbus cabin for ventilation analyses. The building of a tool for the calculation of cabin air volume flow rate from air loop telemetry data (primarily fans dp and input current) This paper describes in detail the above mentioned activities by pointing the attention on the critical aspects to be faced and the utilized techniques, taking also into account 1E mission lessons learned, and future developments.

ASA (Advanced Structural Assembly) is an Italian Space Agency (ASI) technological development program which has the purpose to investigate and improve the knowhow on fundamental technologies relevant to the field of the space re-entry vehicles. A wing segment collecting different experiments will be tested in the Plasma Wind Tunnel (PWT) available at the Scirocco facility. One of the technologies under investigation is the active cooling applied to a wing leading edge element. That design solution is challenging both for manufacturing and for thermal-hydraulic aspects. A dedicated analysis campaign was performed at design level and a development test was carried out on a representative “breadboard” to verify the basic assumptions before the manufacturing of the final technological demonstrator which will be tested in the Plasma Wind Tunnel facility.