Demonstration of a Passive Thermal Management System for Cooling Electronics in Extreme Environments

Extended operation of exploratory systems on the surface of planets like Venus, means that techniques to cool system electronics to essentially room temperature (30ºC) while the ambient temperature is over 470ºC must be developed and demonstrated. This proposal discloses a patent-pending passive thermal management system (TMS) capable of providing electronic system cooling at 30ºC, while rejecting heat to ambient temperatures above 500ºC. This Phase I effort includes performance demonstration experiments in a representative thermal environment. These experiments will demonstrate a TMS system with a system mass of less than 0.22 kg/W/day, that provides passive isothermal temperature control, with no moving parts.

The proposed system is also ideal for any short-term thermal management system where system mass, volume, power consumption or reliability is a primary concern, such as cooling the electronics or avionics in missiles and UAVs. It also has potential for cooling the large transient thermal loads associated with Directed Energy Weapons, where steady-state active and phase change thermal storage systems are too large or too heavy.

The proposed system can be used for any unmanned exploratory mission to either distant or nearby planets. The passive thermal control system is thermally-activated, only turning itself on when it reaches the location and the thermal control is needed. It can be used in spacecraft, balloons and landers, whenever thermal control is needed in a high temperature environment. The system is lighter than conventional active systems or phase change solutions. As the proposal shows, this system is ideally suited to a planetary exploration missions on Venus. It is also well suited to reentry cooling applications, where the high local ambient temperature (as a result of reentry heating) makes conventional heat rejection systems temporarily inadequate

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