Engineering Science and Materials Commons^™

Thermal And Orbital Analysis Of Darkness Cubesat, Katie Dickey

Honors Program Projects

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is sending a 3U CubeSat into LEO to search for a 3.5 keV photon corresponding to the decay of a theorized dark matter particle called the sterile neutrino. The CubeSat will encounter environmental variations while in orbit that can be computed through an orbital analysis using System’s Tool Kit. In order to minimize thermal noise readout, improve optical resolution, and increase bandwidth, the sensors must be kept below 170K while taking data. This temperature is difficult to achieve due to radiation from the Sun and the Earth’s albedo radiation. Through the thermal analysis, the lowest temperature …