• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.40-45
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• 2013

Satellite's infrared detector shall be calibrated under thermal vacuum environment using a reference black body before a launch. The full aperture black body (FABB) as an infrared calibration reference shall be composed of vacuum compatible materials and temperature controlled from $-40^{\circ}C$ to $+40^{\circ}C$ with emissivity higher than 0.95. The temperature homogeneity over the central 80 % area of the FABB front surface shall be better than 2 K. The FABB designed by thermal and flow analysis was $1m{\times}1m{\times}8mm$ copper plate on which black painted aluminum honeycomb core was attached. Copper tubes were welded on the opposite side of the honeycomb core to allow temperature regulated gaseous nitrogen to flow through them. By the FABB validation test, the temperature homogeneity was observed around 1 K using 20 PT100 sensors and modified COTS infrared camera. The emissivity value was 0.975 at $40^{\circ}C$ under atmospheric pressure.