Data supporting the MSc thesis: The Design and Automation of a TVAC Testbed to Simulate LEO-to-VLEO Mission Profiles

<strong>This repository contains the MATLAB and LabVIEW code developed for the MSc thesis "The Design and Automation of a TVAC Testbed to Simulate LEO-to-VLEO Mission Profiles".</strong><br>The MATLAB code consists of three programs. The first is a standalone CubeSat aerothermal heating model, used for first-order heat flux estimation and validation against literature cases. The second is the full LEO-to-VLEO thermal environment model, which combines Keplerian orbit propagation, NRLMSISE-00 atmospheric modelling, aerothermal heating, and solar, albedo, and Earth IR fluxes exported from the MATLAB CubeSat Thermal Power Toolbox (Mattos, 2023). This model generates time-dependent orbital states, atmospheric properties, thermal loads, and equivalent infrared power requirements for reproduction in a thermal vacuum chamber. The third program performs a sensitivity analysis of the aerothermal model, evaluating the influence of altitude, velocity, geographic location, season, UTC time, solar activity, and geomagnetic activity on the predicted heat flux.<br>The LabVIEW code is provided as a complete automation project for the modified VLEO thermal vacuum chamber. The application is based on the LabVIEW Continuous Measurement and Logging example project using a Queued Message Handler architecture. The main application is launched through Main.vi. It provides centralised monitoring, control, data acquisition, logging, manual and automatic profile execution, and safety handling for the Huber Unistat 815, Julabo Presto A40, Yokogawa GM10, and the three TTi QL355TP power supplies used to control the infrared emitter zones.<br>The code was developed for a specific experimental setup at DLR RSC3/RSTEC. It is intended for research traceability, review, and potential reuse in similar first-order aerothermal modelling or TVAC automation work. The MATLAB models should be treated as first-order analytical models. The LabVIEW project should not be used with other TVAC or high-power infrared systems without independent hardware verification and safety validation.