Master Thesis - OUFTI-1

2.3.1 Skeleton
The skeleton of OUFTI-1 corresponds to the 1U structure of Pumpkin's CSK. This
structure comprises three main parts:
• A chassis, with a thickness of 1.27 mm.
• A base plate, with a thickness of 1.52 mm, that is screwed on the chassis with 6
M3 × 4 mm stainless steel screws. It supports one normal foot, two spring plunger
feet and one deployment switch foot. These special feet are used to deploy the
CubeSats from the P-PODs when they are placed in orbit.
• An end plate, with a thickness of 1.52 mm, that is screwed on the chassis with 4
M3 × 4 mm stainless steel screws. It supports four normal feet.
The skeleton is made of Aluminum (Al) 5052 H32 and the feet are made of Al−6061 T 6.
A surface treatment is also performed on the structure. The rails (situated on the corners
of the chassis) and the feet are hard-anodized to prevent galling when they are in contact
with the P-POD. The rest of the structure is alodined, which is an electrically-conductive
surface nish [22]. This last fact is very important because the structure will be used as
the reference electrical mass for the CubeSat.
The kit also includes a Flight Module (FM) 430 (used as main On-Board Computer
(OBC) in OUFTI-1: OBC 1). It is important to note that all the functions available on
this card are not used for OUFTI-1 (e.g., the MHX transceiver). This fact will turn out to
be a crucial information for the nal conguration (see section 2.3.3).
Figure 2.3 shows the devices of the CubeSat kit bought by ULg.
Figure 2.3: CSK structure with the FM 430
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