Development of an Automated Thermal Model Correlation Method and Tool

§An essential part in the development of a spacecraft is the establishment of a thermal model for the thermal design and the temperature predictions during the operation phase. In order to improve the accuracy of the calculated temperatures, the thermal model has to be correlated with measurements from thermal tests or flight data. Available methods for the correlation are using the full thermal model and the full calculation time. Moreover, a correlation is an iterative process with multiple calculation cases necessary. Consequently, current methods are very time-consuming. A new method for the correlation of thermal models has been developed and is currently being implemented. With this newly developed tool TAUMEL it will be possible to correlate thermal models automatically and in much shorter time compared to current methods. In a first phase the mathematical methodical approach has been elaborated and an initial version of the tool has been established. In a second phase TAUMEL has been improved with respect to the numerical optimization method. Furthermore, first validation steps using larger thermal models have been performed. The developed method, the current implementation status and first results are presented in this paper.