Temperature due to radiation in lower Thermosphere

bradyle

Hi I'm only new to the forum but was wondering if any of you could help me with a problem I'm having.

I'm currently designing a pico-satellite that will orbit in the lower thermosphere between 320Km and 90Km and am trying to run simulations on my designs.
I've run into a brick wall when trying to find the temperature the satellite will be exposed too. I know due to the near vacuum like qualities of the thermosphere the satellite will only be heated with radiation by the sun and by the earth to a lesser degree. But I can't find any information on the actual temperatures due to radiation in this area. If anyone could give me any help on this it would be greatly appreciated


Lorraine

Atabak

Well this is not as easy as you want, but as a rule of thumb, you may check the Stefan–Boltzmann law.

bigfooted

Exactly, with the S-B law you can calculate for your sat the incoming heat, which is approximately 1350 W/m^2 in space, at the location of earth. You then need to know the absorption and reflection properties of your sat. You can use this to calculate how much your sat heats up in the period that it is exposed to solar radiation. This is the reason that these big sats have gold foil all over them - to reflect the solar heat back into space.