Appeal No. 2004-1456 Page 5
Application No. 09/624,151
thereby reducing the required area of the spacecraft radiator
and the mass of the spacecraft.
Typical spacecraft currently use the north and south
faces of the spacecraft as primary radiating surfaces. The
other spacecraft surfaces (east, west, earth and aft) are
usually not effective as primary radiating surfaces due to
high relative solar loading. Using the present heat pump
system, spacecraft radiator temperatures can be elevated,
and therefore these other surfaces of the spacecraft (west,
east, earth and aft) can be effectively used as radiating
surfaces.
The present specification further discloses on page 3 that:
The heat pipe radiator panels of conventional spacecraft
heat dissipating systems are at or below the source or
payload temperature as opposed to the present invention
which is at elevated temperature. Currently deployed
spacecraft use north-south radiating surfaces, while the
present invention allows all surfaces of the spacecraft to be
in thermal communication and be effectively used as
radiators.
According to the disclosure on page 4 of appellants’ specification, the heat pump
of the present invention comprises an evaporator 22, a compressor 23 and an
expansion valve 24. The compressor 23 elevates the temperature of the fluid above
that of the evaporator 22 and is coupled to the radiator-condenser 26 disposed on
selected surfaces of the spacecraft which radiates heat from the system and the
spacecraft.
From the above disclosures in appellants’ specification as originally filed, one of
ordinary skill in the art of heat transfer would have understood that, in the conventional
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