Thermal pointing error analysis of the observation satellites with interpolated temperature based on PAT method

Abstract

In this work, we conduct a thermal pointing error analysis of the observation satellites considering seasonal and daily temperature variation with interpolated temperature based on prescribed average temperature (PAT) method. Maximum 200 degree temperature excursion is applied to the observation satellites during on-orbit operation, which cause the line of sight (LOS) to deviate from the designated pointing direction due to thermo-elastic deformation. To predict and adjust such deviation, the thermo-elastic deformation analysis with a fine structural finite element model is accomplished with interpolated thermal maps calculated from the results of on-station thermal analysis with a coarse thermal model. After verifying the interpolated temperatures by PAT with two benchmark problems, we evaluate the thermal pointing error.