Mission Design for the CubeSat OUFTI-1

CHAPTER 12All these tasks will be accomplish with a tight cooperation between universityand industries: in particular, Thales-Alenia Space ETCA in Charleroi for theelectrical power subsystem, the Liège Space Center for the thermal control andthe choice of future payloads, Spacebel in Liège for the on board data handling,LuxSpace for the mission analysis, Open-Engineering in Liège for the attitudecontrol and V 2 i in Liège for the structure and configuration subsystem.Anyway, all these future developments need more information on the payload,not available at the moment. A satellite is in fact its payload and, withoutit, it hasn’t any reason to exist. All the design has to be conducted on thebase of payload’s requirements and in order to give him the best conditions toaccomplish its mission. The first and more important step is therefore to havea precise configuration of the D-STAR system and to know its limits. Only inthis way, we will be able to evaluate if the power produced is enough, if thedoppler effect without attitude control is too high and how much we need toshield the payload from radiations.12.1 Possible payloadsThe foreseen payloads of the future missions of LEODIUM Project deserve aseparate treatment. In fact, mass and power available on a CubeSat make thisevaluation quite complicate.Among the university departments, the interest is mainly concentrated on Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) and on granular material. The former isparticularly suitable for a nanosatellite: so small actuators and sensors can infact be used to control the satellite and we can in this way test their behaviorin space and their resistance to external environment before employing them onmore ambitious missions.The ideal target for a CubeSat mission is in fact a technology demonstrationor testing a recently developed element. The project is cheap and its goal ismainly educational to give students hand-on experience: placing on a CubeSatnon space-tested elements that risk to cause the satellite failure is much lessdramatic than chance loosing a bigger mission. In fact, even if the mission fails,students have taken advantage of the acquired experience.Among the possible technology demonstration payloads, the most interestingseems to be some MEMS for attitude control system’s sensors and actuators,active antennas and thermal sensors and magnetometers.Also testing into space some active damping systems seems interesting: one ofthe main problems in space is in fact that the viscous damping of a structuredisappears and only the structural damping remains. As a result, structuresthat on the earth are sufficiently damped, in space need some added dampersto avoid excessive vibrations as well as damping systems are less effective intoGalli Stefania 112 University of Liège