Heat sink/fluid-to-fluid mechanical coupling of spacecraft coolant

Abstract

A spacecraft modular system with two components of a cooling system, one in each replacement hardware module and one in the satellite station, with a coupling means in the replacement module in the form of heat sink which collects heat from the heat generating hardware in the replacement module. The heat sink incorporates heat sink fins which interdigitize with coolant tubes in the satellite coolant system and make a mechanical interface with the fins in response to the satellite coolant system pressure for a thermally efficient heat exchange from the replacement module to the satellite coolant system. In another embodiment, replacement module coolant tubes interdigitize directly with the satellite coolant tubes in a fluid pressure responsive thermally efficient mechanical contact to provide a fluid-to-fluid mechanical coupling. The satellite cooling system is arranged in subsystems to isolate the coupling means from the remainder of the satellite cooling system to permit coupling and decoupling of selected modules without disturbing the remainder of the cooling system. Also involved is a method of forming a compound bend for the interdigitizing tubing arrangement of the second embodiment.