Thermal Control Technology Developments for a Venus Lander.

The thermal control system for a Venus Lander is critical to mission success and the harsh operating environment presents significant thermal design and implementation challenges. A successful thermal architecture draws heavily from previous missions to the Venus surface such as Pioneer Venus and the Soviet Venera Landers. Future Venus missions will require more advanced thermal control strategies to allow greater science return than previous missions and will need to operate for more than one or two hours as previous missions have done. This paper describes a Venus Lander thermal architecture including the technology development of a phase change material system for absorbing the heat generated within the Lander itself and an insulation system for resisting the heat penetrating the Lander from the Venus environment. The phase change energy storage system uses lithium nitrate that can absorb twice the amount of energy per unit mass in comparison to paraffin based systems. The insulation system uses a porous silica material capable of handling a high temperature and high pressure gas environment while maintaining low thermal conductivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]