| Abstract |
The thermal design is commonly important for developing space instruments. It must be well considered early in a program because the thermal design constrains most parts of an instrument, such as geometry, materials, mass, size, power consumption, etc. Instruments on the Moon have particularly difficult thermal problem. The lunar surface temperature varies from -200 to 120 degC slowly in the day cycle. For long-term operations beyond the lunar nights, a thermal control system is necessary which exhausts heat effectively during daytime, and insulates and keeps heat at night.We conducted the concept design of the thermal control system (Lunar Survival Module) for a future lunar seismometer which is continuously operated for 1 year to acquire statistically enough data of lunar seismic vibrations in the SELENE-2 mission. The new concept of the module is that the conical-shape multi-layered insulator covers the seismometer. The insulator retains heat in the regolith soil in the daylight and it can keep the device warm in the night by using the lunar top-layer soil as a heat sink. We report results of conceptual examinations and validation tests of a bread board model. The results indicated a sufficient possibility of the long-term survival on the lunar surface. |
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