Mission Capability Assessment of 3D Printing Cubesats

Abstract

With the successful development of integrated technologies, many spacecraft subsystems have been continuously miniaturized, and CubeSats have gradually become the main executors of space science exploration missions. It is a new challenge to combine the CubeSat design with 3D printing. Compared with traditional manufacturing through machining, 3D printing technology has several advantages including short period of manufacturing, high accuracy in manufacturing small parts and low cost. The research task of this paper is a LEO (Low Earth Orbit) CubeSat mission, with a maximum acceleration of 5 g during the launch process, the internal operating temperature range of the CubeSat is from 0 to 40 °C, external temperature from -80 to 100 °C. The environmental factors were fully considered in the CubeSat design process, the impact load received during the CubeSat launch process and the working environment after reaching orbit were simulated and analyzed by ANSYS after the design parameters were obtained to verify the feasibility of the design.