Dr. Taylor's research is focused on incorporating a thermochromic insulator-to-metal phase transition material, vanadium dioxide, into nanoengineered coatings to deliver variable heat rejection for spacecraft radiators and structural elements. When the temperature of the spacecraft is above nominal, the coating has high emittance to promote high rejection to cool the spacecraft. Conversely, when the temperature of the spacecraft is low, the coating has low emittance to minimize heat loss from the spacecraft. This technology would have the potential to reduce or eliminate the need for survival heaters in robotic spacecraft. In human spacecraft, a thermochromic variable emittance coating would enable single loop thermal control architecture by preventing the freezing of non-toxic transport fluids in the radiator during cold phases of the mission. Dr. Taylor’s research work includes the design, analysis, fabrication, testing, and systems modeling of these variable emittance coatings.

Dr. Sydney Taylor is currently a thermal engineer at the NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, working on thermal analysis for the Artemis program, battery thermal runaway, and ablating thermal protection systems. Her research interests include nanofabricated thermal control coatings, thermal switches, spacecraft thermal systems modeling, and solar sailing. She received her bachelors in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from Purdue University in 2013 and her PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Arizona State University in 2020. Her PhD studies were supported by NASA space technology research fellowship.

Graduate Student Heat and Mass Transfer Council Seminar Series

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Sydney J. Taylor (2022), "Thermochromic Variable Emittance Coatings for Spacecraft Thermal Control," https://nanohub.org/resources/35787.

  BibTex | EndNote

1. coatings
2. materials science
3. spacecraft
4. thermal properties
5. thermodynamics