Key issues of creating the inflatable braking devices for removal of the failed satellites into the atmosphere dense layers Part 2. Analysis of the thermal regime under the combined heating conditions

Abstract

The promising solution in reducing pollution of the low Earth orbits by space debris consisting of artificial satellites, other spacecraft and elements of the launch vehicles and upper stages that exhausted their resources lies in introduction of the inflatable braking devices. The simplest version of such a system could be a thin-walled shell made of polymeric material being stored in a folded form in the satellite’s transport container and being inflated at the right time on command acquiring the given configuration. Large area of the shell midsection provides an increase in the braking force in the highly rarefied atmosphere and a decrease in the flight velocity followed by a descent into the atmosphere dense layers for liquidation. Selection of the rational parameters for the braking device inflatable shell provides for solution of rather complex interdisciplinary problems. Among them, the task of determining the inflatable shell temperature state is distinguished, which would be formed exposed to action of the thermal radiation fluxes from the Sun, the Earth and kinetic heating caused by motion in the free molecular medium. Heat transfer specifics of the thin-walled spherical shell of an inflatable braking device designed to remove the obsolete CubeSat-class nanosatellites positioned in the low Earth orbits were considered.