Moon surface thermal characteristics for moon orbiting spacecraft thermal analysis

The thermal characteristics of the funar surface are of great importance for the calculation of the surface heat flux affecting a lunar orbiting spacecraft. This paper aims to collate the existing information from the literature and systematically arrange the data in a readily usable way. Two simple surface temperature mathematical models are deyeloped, to simulate steady state and transient behaviour. The analytical model results are compared with experimental measurements and good agreement is found. Finally, the problem of the worst cases for the spacecraft thermal analysis is discussed.