Dynamic modelling of CubeSat project MOVE
Abstract: In the last few decades the number of small scale satellites has been in an
increasing pace. The numbers of market players competing in the global
scenario are highly motivated to develop satellites of micro and pico
scales,
in order to reduce the time frame and project cost.However more complex task
have to be performed and even more lifetime and reliability must be
provided.
The responsibility of an engineer starting from design to delivery (D to D)
of a satellite has such an enormous complexity that it can only be solved
through team work. The subsystems of a satellite consist of power (EPS),
communication (COMM), On board data handling (OBDH), structure, mechanics,
thermal, attitude and orbit control (AOCS), telemetry and tracking requires
a multidisciplinary approach to achieve within the time span. At the
Institute of Astronautics (LRT), Technical University of Munich (TUM), the
Space System Concept Centre (S2C2) has been implemented to support the
satellite design process, where the CubeSat MOVE is one of the projects
under development process. Every work package is handled by different
subsystem specialist. Each specialist has their own workstation. The
workstations are linked such that all the users can work on the same
project. MOVE is an educational project for realization of a CubeSat
mission at the Institute of Astronautics. The first satellite �First-
MOVE� will verify the satellite platform and new highly efficient solar
cells from industry. It is a CubeSat in single-configuration (10x10x10
cm�) which features deployable solar arrays. For support of the
development process, the satellite system will be modelled in a system
engineering tool ((v)-Sys-ed). Also the system engineering tool can be used
to dimension several design parameters like solar array size or battery
size. In this thesis an already existing generic model of dimensioning the
satellite is used for modelling the project MOVE, while at times the
generic models needs to be either updated or changed according to the
project requirements and verified with the literature references. The
purpose is to keep track of the entire system parameters like mass, energy
consumption, and mass memory size and so on. As these models and
calculation are only based on a static state of the satellite system, it
cannot simulate the dynamic behavior of the satellite, hence it requires
dynamic scenarios to be assumed and analyzed. ESA�s SIMVIS tool has been
used to validate the link and payload conditions through antenna and
payload visibility studies along with visualization. The antenna
connectivity to the ground station and the camera visibility with
respect to earth are simulated using the SIMVIS tool. Further add to the
validation, a similar setup is developed using the predominantly used
mission analysis software called AGI Satellite Tool Kit (STK). The latter
part of the thesis work is on the implementation of generic dynamic
satellite models for the development of one another software called OpenSim
Kit. Based on the different software approaches used, the ultimate aim is
to compare the software usability and list the expectation of a spacecraft
systems engineer.
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