Planetary and Lunar Environment Thermal Toolbox Elements (PALETTE) Project Final Results

This paper summarizes the advancements made during the three-year JPL PALETTE project, which was funded by NASA GCD. The project goal was to ensure that a full “palette” of flight-ready (high TRL) thermal “toolbox” elements is available so that engineers are able to create passive, ultra-isolative thermal designs for science instruments on a variety of carriers in lunar/planetary extreme environments. PALETTE was structured with four design/build/test efforts (Tasks 1-4) and four analysis/study efforts (Tasks 5-8). Task 1 targeted thermally-switched enclosures (TSE). Task 2 sought the development of affordable parabolic reflector radiators (PRR). Task 3 focused on the implementation of ultra-low effective emissivity (e*) multilayer insulation known as “spacerless” MLI (SMLI). Task 4 involved the development of low conductance thermal isolators (LCTI). Task 5 studied the optimization of gimbaled IR spectrometers. Task 6 conceptualized thermal transport, storage, and switching combinations to achieve new capabilities. Task 7 investigated feed-through heat loss minimization. Lastly, Task 8 modeled instrument scalability, extensibility, and planetary use. All key test/analytical results obtained during the three-year project are included herein.