The space industry is rapidly expanding, and components are getting increasinglysmaller leading to the prominence of cubesats. Cubesats are satellites from about coffee mug size to cereal box size. The challenges of shortened timeline and smaller budgets for smaller spacecraft are also their biggest advantages. This benefits educational missions and industry missions a like but can burden teams to be smaller or have less experience. Thermal analysis of cubesats is no exception to these burdens which is why this thesis has been written to provide a guide for conducting the thermal analysis of a cubesat using the Deployable Optical Receiver Aperture (DORA) mission as an example. Background on cubesats and their role in the space industry will be examined. The theoretical side of heat transfer necessary for conducting a thermal analysis will be explored. The DORA thermal analysis will then be conducted by constructing a thermal model in Thermal Desktop software from the ground up. Insight to assumptions for model construction to move accurately yet quickly will be detailed. Lastly, this fast and quick method will be compared to a standard finite element mesh model to show quality results can be achieved in significantly less time.

The interactions that take place in the ionized halo of gas surrounding galaxies, known as the circumgalactic medium (CGM), dictates the host galaxy's evolution throughout cosmic time. These interactions are powered by inflows and outflows that enable the transfer of matter and energy, and are driven by feedback processes such as accretion, galactic winds, star formation and active galactic nuclei. Such feedback and the interactions that ensue leads to the formation of non-equilibrium chemistry in the CGM. This non-equilibrium chemistry is implied by observations that reveal the highly non-uniform distribution of lower ionization state species, such as Mg II and Si II, along with widespread higher ionization state material, such as O VI, that is difficult to match with equilibrium models. Given these observations, the CGM must be viewed as a dynamic, multiphase medium, such as occurs in the presence of turbulence. To better understand this ionized halo, I used the non-equilibrium chemistry package, MAIHEM, to perform hydrodynamic (HD) simulations. I carried out a suite of HD simulations with varying levels of artificially driven, homogeneous turbulence to learn how this influences the non-equilibrium chemistry that develops under certain conditions present in the CGM. I found that a level of turbulence consistent with velocities implied by observations replicated many observed features within the CGM, such as low and high ionization state material existing simultaneously. At higher levels of turbulence, however, simulations lead to a thermal runaway effect. To address this issue, and conduct more realistic simulations of this environment, I modeled a stratified medium in a Milky Way mass Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) gravitational potential with turbulence that decreased radially. In this setup and with similar levels of turbulence, I alleviated the amount of thermal runaway that occurs, while also matching observed ionization states. I then performed magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) simulations with the same model setup that additionally included rotation in the inner halo. Magnetic fields facilitate the development of an overall hotter CGM that forms dense structures within where magnetic pressure dominates. Ion ratios in these regions resemble detections and limits gathered from recent observations. Furthermore, magnetic fields allow for the diffusion of angular momentum throughout the extended disk and gas cooling onto the disk, allowing for the maintenance of the disk at late times.