Mission Design for the CubeSat OUFTI-1

CHAPTER 1111.3 Environmental testsThe space environment is extremely hostile for a satellite: radiations, thermalcycling and vacuum are the main problems. Especially the electronic equipmentare sensible as they have narrow temperature limits and often suffer of damagesdue to radiations.Given that all the material used on OUFTI-1 will be among the approved materialof NASA in order to avoid an excessive out-gassing, the behavior of thespacecraft and of the payload need to be carefully tested. Environmental testinclude thermal vacuum, thermal cycling and other more mission oriented testsas rain and humidity test.For OUFTI-1 thermal-vacuum and thermal cycling are combined with a thermalbalance test in a single vacuum sequence.The thermal vacuum test level for acceptance test are indicated in table11.1. The duration of the acceptance test to use for the PFM test is 2 hours.Table 11.1: Thermal vacuum qualification test for the PFM.Number of cycles 4Maximum Temperature T max70 ◦ CMinimum Temperature T min20 ◦ CDuration at T max2hDuration at T min2hTemperature rate (heating) < 20 ◦ C/min (internal),> 20 ◦ C/min (external)Temperature rate (cooling)2 ÷ 3 ◦ C/minThe thermal cycling level for acceptance are indicated in table 11.2. Theduration of the acceptance test to use for the PFM test is 2 hours.Table 11.2: Thermal cycling qualification testNumber of cycles 10Maximum Temperature T max70 ◦ CMinimum Temperature T min20 ◦ CDuration at T max2hDuration at T min2hTemperature rate (heating) < 20 ◦ C/min (internal),> 20 ◦ C/min (external)Temperature rate (cooling)2 ÷ 3 ◦ C/minStabilization criterion1 ◦ C/1hGalli Stefania 110 University of Liège