Thermal control design and simulation of the moonlight survival device of alpha particle X-ray spectrometer

The Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) is installed on the outside of a Lunar Rover, lunar rocks and soil can be studied by the mobility of the Rover and flexibility of the robotic arm. Because to be exposed outside the rover, complex outer heat flux will have a greater impact on APXS. Especially moonlight temperature of the moon surface can be as low as -180°C, and duration will be up to 10 days, so the instrument will be faced with the test in moonlight. In view of this, a specialized Moonlight survival device dedicated to the APXS is designed to ensure the instrument storage temperature requirements under a long time and low temperature environment. In this paper, the thermal control design of the moonlight survival device of APXS and the thermal simulation results based on its thermal control designs are summarized. And the calculation results have been verified by the corresponding thermal balance test.