Preliminary Assessment of the Effectiveness of Using a Steam Turbine Generator Plant as Part of a System Ensuring a Thermal Regime by Using Loop Heat Pipes

The problem of using a steam generator plant, operating on the Rankine cycle, to utilize some of the thermal energy as part of the system for ensuring the thermal regime of a spacecraft is considered. The thermal energy released by the instrumentation equipment is removed to external radiators using loop heat pipes, after which it is radiated into outer space. Part of the heat is converted into electricity to maintain the functioning of on-board radio-electronic equipment. The work assessed the influence of a steam generator plant on thermal systems (with a preliminary solution of a system of thermohydraulic equations with characteristic initial-boundary conditions of loop heat pipes), its design parameters, such as the area of external radiators and the mass of the system, and conclusions are made about the feasibility of its use. This system for ensuring thermal conditions using loop heat pipes can be useful for energy-consuming unmanned spacecraft with low restrictions on the mass and size characteristics of the device.