Power and Thermal System Modeling for a Pressurized Lunar Rover

A pressurized lunar rover is an integral part of the planned lunar architecture, because it enables exploration and scientific missions and can serve as a secondary habitat. It is composed of many subsystems, and there are no conceptual/parametric tools that size a pressurized rover. This work focuses on sizing the active thermal control, energy storage, and power generation systems necessary to survive a 150-hour lunar night at the South Pole. The power storage subsystem uses batteries, regenerative fuel cells, or a combination of both, and the power is generated from a photovoltaic array. The thermal system is composed of an internal and external pumped loop system that uses radiators to dissipate heat. The purpose of this study is to investigate trade-offs between the power and thermal systems and find the subsystem sensitivities to the input parameters. The rover model is parametric and created in an open multidisciplinary analysis and optimization (OpenMDAO) framework to enable the sensitivity analysis.