• Question: Is there heating on the ISS?

    Asked by 299trn28 to Anne, Beth, COLFlight, Jon, Tom on 12 Oct 2015.
    • Photo: Columbus Flight Directors

      Columbus Flight Directors answered on 12 Oct 2015:

      Sergio:
      Hi!
      This is an interesting question, because I think you woudn’t expect what I”m going to answer. 🙂

      In space, the problem is usuallly the other way round than on Earth. Since there is no atmosphere, the heat transmission happens only by radiation, which is very inefficient compared to convection.
      On the ISS, there are a lot of equipment that generate heat; all the electrical hardware generates heat when it functions. Actually even the astronauts do, every human being generates about 100 W heat!

      So the problem on the ISS is actually to be able to dissipate that heat. So instead of heating, we have air conditioning, to keep the cabin temperature low enough to be comfortable for the astronauts (it’s usually kept at about 75 degrees F/23 degrees C).

      We also heave some electrical heaters on the structure, to keep it warm when the ISS is in the dark. But this almost doesn’t affect the temperature of the air.

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