Mechanical Pumped Cooling Loop for Spacecraft Thermal Control
The Mars Pathfinder (MPF) spacecraft, scheduled for a December '96 launch to Mars, uses a mechanically pumped loop to transfer dissipated heat from the insulated lander electronics to an external radiator. This paper discusses the tradeoffs performed before choosing a mechanicall
Selection note: Curated as a flown-program precursor describing Mars Pathfinder's mechanically pumped cooling-loop trade, analysis, design, development tests, and predicted performance.
Evidence boundary: Only NTRS metadata and an abstract are open here; the complete test record and flight performance were not validated in this pass. It is bounded spacecraft precedent, not worldship thermal-closure evidence.
The Mars Pathfinder (MPF) spacecraft, scheduled for a December '96 launch to Mars, uses a mechanically pumped loop to transfer dissipated heat from the insulated lander electronics to an external radiator. This paper discusses the tradeoffs performed before choosing a mechanically pumped loop as the thermal control system for MPF. It describes the analysis, design, and predicted performance of this system. The various development tests performed are discussed along with the current status of this cooling system. Finally, some thoughts on the development of mechanically pumped loops for future spacecraft are presented.
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Only NTRS metadata and an abstract are open here; the complete test record and flight performance were not validated in this pass. It is bounded spacecraft precedent, not worldship thermal-closure evidence.
Source-supplied titles, abstracts, authors, and dates may require correction against the canonical full text.
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A newer or corrected version, retraction, verified duplicate, material topic mismatch, changed access state, or claim-level assessment would change this record.
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2026-07-25
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