Abstract
CubeSats provide a cost-effective means of several functions of satellites due to their small size, mass, relative simplicity and short development time. Therefore, CubeSat technologies have been widely studied and developed by space organizations, companies and educational institutions all over the world. These satellites have certain drawbacks. Small surface areas are a consequence of their small size which often imply thermal and power constraints. A novel development of CubeSats known as PW-Sat has been developed by Warsaw University of Technology. A control-oriented lumped thermal model of this satellite containing a fuel tank in the form of nonlinear ordinary differential equations is proposed in this paper. The model is able to simulate the thermal behavior of the surface and fuel tank of the satellite in its orbit. For the PW-Sat to operate reliably, the temperature of the fuel tank has to be maintained within given safety limits. Because of the limited power, passive thermal control is assumed in this case. Several simulation results are presented for different surface compositions to determine whether they are able to guarantee the prescribed temperature range throughout the entire orbit or not.
Highlights
In recent years, interest in Cube-Satellites (CubeSats) has grown tremendously within the space community from space agencies as well as in industry and academia
The structure of the paper is as follows: the description starts with the derivation of a simple mathematical model to simulate the transient thermal behavior of the fuel tank as well as the satellite faces in orbit
The faces and investigations into the thermal behavior of the tank are presented for several cases based on: uncoated surfaces, surfaces coated with magnesium oxide-aluminum oxide paint and different feasible options of the ratios of solar cells from the PW-Sat to simulate the temperature of the fuel tank with different optical properties of the surface materials and solar cell ratios
Summary
Interest in Cube-Satellites (CubeSats) has grown tremendously within the space community from space agencies as well as in industry and academia. The goal of this paper is to propose a lumped dynamical model of temperatures during orbital motion in the main parts of a CubeSat that contains a fuel tank. Advanced thermal simulation tools exist that utilize detailed distributed mathematical models, this simple form of a model has been chosen since it is intended to be used in the model of temperature control design. AL-HEMEARY, JAWORSKI, KINDRACKI, AND SZEDERKÉNYI lites in the form of ODEs. In [14] a simple thermal dynamical model of a CubeSat containing two differential equations is presented. The structure of the paper is as follows: the description starts with the derivation of a simple mathematical model to simulate the transient thermal behavior of the fuel tank as well as the satellite faces in orbit. By changing either the optical properties of the surface of the PW-Sat or the solar cell ratio of the satellite surface, several simulations are presented to illustrate how different configurations satisfy the given temperature limits
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