Effect of Variable Emittance Coatings on the Operation of a Miniature Loop Heat Pipe

As the size of spacecraft shrink to accommodate small and more efficient instruments, smaller launch vehicles, and constellation missions, all subsystems must also be made smaller. Under NASA NRA 03‐OSS‐02, Space Technology‐8 (ST 8), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Jet Propulsion Laboratory jointly conducted a Concept Definition study to develop a miniature loop heat pipe (loop heat pipe) thermal management system design suitable for future small spacecraft. The proposed loop heat pipe thermal management system consists of a miniature loop heat pipe (LHP) and deployable radiators that are coated with variable emittance coatings (VECs). As part of the Phase A study and proof of the design concept, variable emittance coatings were integrated with a breadboard miniature loop heat pipe. The entire system was tested under vacuum at various temperature extremes and power loads. This paper summarizes the results of this testing and shows the effect of the VEC on the operation of a miniature loop heat pipe.