Liebherr-Aerospace Toulouse SAS will be working in partnership with Thales Alenia Space to develop thermal management capabilities for a Mechanically Pumped Loop (MPL) cooling system for satellites.

Thales Alenia Space is a joint venture between Thales (67 per cent), Leonardo (33 per cent) and CNES. The venture will develop industrial production and co-design capabilities for evaporators and condensers. These are key components of the next-generation telecommunication satellite’s technology payload and platform cooling system, which actively manages the electronic heat dissipation.

Systems need to remain in space for at least 15 years

Manufacturing evaporators and condensers for future MPL cooling systems will be a demanding assignment as the systems are needed to remain in space for at least 15 years without maintenance.

Evaporators and condensers will have to be engineered to be completely free from leakage as well being reliable and robust enough to operate flawlessly during the entire period at high heat-exchange performances.

The market for telecommunication satellites is fast-moving and becoming more demanding in terms of responsiveness, high quality control and cost competitiveness. Liebherr-Aerospace’s French-based centre of excellence is developing innovative industrial welding and manufacturing processes which meet the demands and high standards of both space and serial production levels of requirements.

Thales Alenia Space has been building up its product range differentiation through advancing technology. Cooling electronics mounted on-board powerful digital telecom payloads has become a challenge due to increasing density needed to meet such expectations. Thales Alenia Space is continuously developing innovations as well as building relevant partnerships in a fast-moving market.

Image: Thales Alenia Space

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