Our services

Access to facilities

MSL has a state-of-the-art facility for nanosatellite development, which are available for use by the space sector within Australia. Our lab is equipped with advanced manufacturing for thermal management system fabrication, vacuum environment characterisation and analysis, and a mechanical and electronics technical workshop offering specialised equipment for development of custom-designed components.

Key Capabilities

• Thermal model correlation
• Vibration characterisation
• High ESD protection requirement electronics fabrication
• Thermal and vacuum (TVAC) bakeout and cycling
• High-cleanliness requirement fabrication (Positive pressure ISO Class 3)
• Small component mechanical fabrication

Spacecraft thermal management, design and validation

Within the Melbourne Space Laboratory, there is wide experience in Thermal Analysis and Validation gained over many years and many projects both with the European space industry supporting major ESA programs and the Australian space sector.

In addition to designing and building thermal sub-systems, the Melbourne Space Laboratory has heritage in managing thermal verification by analysis and thermal vacuum (T-VAC) testing for a variety of complex spacecraft both at system level and sub-system level. This stretches from detailed thermal work on specific spacecraft components (e.g. antennae and propulsion systems on numerous European spacecraft) to thermal analysis of Australian nano satellites and to large-scale thermal models of entire satellite systems.

The analysis performed by the Melbourne Space Laboratory makes use of industry-wide standard tools such as ESATAN-TMS for verification of thermal performance. This suite is recognised as the standard tool within the European Space Industry. It is further supplemented by thermal software developed in-house, and supports establishing a robust spacecraft thermal design and performing specialised thermal analysis.

The Melbourne Space Laboratory can provide analysis and validation to fully address any and all thermal requirements of both payloads and platforms as required by complex space missions, including:

• A standardised approach to thermal analysis of both missions and operations design, validated across involvement in many projects, ensuring high mission reliability.
• Consultation on spacecraft system thermal design, highlighting key design parameters and design features to ensure thermal control of a spacecraft and its payload
• Guidance on the methods and plans for the verification of a spacecraft system within a simulated flight environment and review of in-flight gathered data.