Engineering Commons^™

Analysis Of An Inflatable Gossamer Device To Efficiently De-Orbit Cubesats, Robert A. Hawkins Jr.

Master's Theses

There is an increased need for spacecraft to quickly and efficiently de-orbit themselves as the amount of debris in orbit around Earth grows. Defunct spacecraft pose a significant threat to the LEO environment due to their risk of fragmentation. If these spacecraft are de-orbited at the end of their useful life their risk to future spacecraft is greatly lessened. A proposed method of efficiently de-orbiting spacecraft is to use an inflatable thin-film envelope to increase the body's area to mass ratio and thusly shortening its orbital lifetime. The system and analysis presented in this project is sized for use on …

Thermal Analysis Of A Monopropellant Micropropulsion System For A Cubesat, Erin C. Stearns

Master's Theses

Propulsive capabilities on a CubeSat are the next step in advancement in the Aerospace Industry. This is no longer a quest that is being sought by just university programs, but a challenge that is being taken on by all of the industry due to the low-cost missions that can be accomplished. At this time, all of the proposed micro-thruster systems still require some form of development or testing before being flight-ready. Stellar Exploration, Inc. is developing a monopropellant micropropulsion system designed specifically for CubeSat application.

The addition of a thruster to a CubeSat would expand the possibilities of what CubeSat …

A Generic Decision Making Framework For Autonomous Systems, Connor Lange

Master's Theses

With the rising popularity of small satellites, such as CubeSats, many smaller institutions previously incapable of developing and deploying a spacecraft have starting to do so. Institutions with a history of space flight, such as NASA JPL, have begun to put projects on CubeSats that would normally fly on much larger satellites. As a result, the institutions with space flight heritage have begun to port spacecraft software that was previously designed for much larger and more complex satellites to the CubeSat platform. Unfortunately for universities, who are the majority of all institutions devel- oping CubeSats, these ported systems are too …

A Gravity Gradient, Momentum-Biased Attitude Control System For A Cubesat, Ryan J. Sellers

Master's Theses

ExoCube is the latest National Science Foundation (NSF) funded space weather CubeSat and is a collaboration between PolySat, Scientific Solutions Inc. (SSI), the University of Wisconsin, NASA Goddard and SRI International. The 3U will carry a mass spectrometer sensor suite, EXOS, in to low earth orbit (LEO) to measure neutral and ionized particles in the exosphere and thermosphere. Measurements of neutral and ion particles are directly impacted by the angle at which they enter EXOS and which leads to pointing requirements. A combination of a gravity gradient system with a momentum bias wheel is proposed to meet pointing requirements while …