Two-Phase Thermal Control Hardware Verification and Validation for the Ka-band Radar Interferometer Instrument

The thermal architecture of the Ka-band Radar Interferometer instrument (KaRIn), part of the Surface Water Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission, utilizes loop heat pipes (LHPs) and constant conductance heat pipes (CCHPs) to transport waste heat (1 kW) from the instrument electronics to the radiator. The main thermal design risk is the ability to maintain a temporal stability of <0.05°C/min in a low earth orbit environment. The stringent thermal requirements are part of the overall error budget needed to meet the primary mission science goals. This is a culmination of the final verification and validation of the flight hardware delivery and covers a summary of the design and testbed activities previously reported, the evolution of, and the ultimate verification and validation of the thermal design.