Abstract
CubeSats facilitate rapid development and deployment of missions for educational, technology demonstration, and scientific purposes. However, they are subject to a high failure rate, with a leading cause being the lack of system-level verification. The Educational Irish Research Satellite (EIRSAT-1) is a CubeSat mission under development in the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Fly Your Satellite! Programme. EIRSAT-1 is a 2U CubeSat with three novel payloads and a bespoke antenna deployment module, which all contribute to the complexity of the project. To increase the likelihood of mission success, a prototype model philosophy is being employed, where both an engineering qualification model (EQM) and a flight model of EIRSAT-1 are being built. Following the assembly of the EQM, the spacecraft underwent a successful full functional test and month-long mission test. An environmental test campaign in ESA Education Office’s CubeSat Support Facility was then conducted with the EQM where both vibration and thermal verification test campaigns were performed. The focus of this paper is the thermal testing and verification of the EIRSAT-1 EQM. Over three weeks, the EQM was subjected to one non-operational cycle, three and a half operational cycles, and a thermal balance test in a thermal vacuum chamber. After dwelling at each temperature extreme, functional tests were performed to investigate the performance of the spacecraft in this space representative environment. The approach to planning and executing the thermal testing is described in detail including the documentation required, set up of the test equipment, and determination of the test levels. Overall, the campaign demonstrated that the mission can successfully operate in a space environment similar to that expected in orbit, despite encountering a number of issues. These issues included a payload displaying anomalous behaviour at cold temperatures and needing to redefine test levels due to an insufficient understanding of the internal dissipation in the spacecraft. A total of two major and three minor non-conformances were raised. Crucially, these issues could not have been found without thermal testing, despite the comprehensive ambient tests performed. The main results and lessons learned during this thermal test campaign are presented with the aim of guiding future missions on optimal approaches in organising and executing the thermal testing of their CubeSats.
Highlights
CubeSats are small-scale satellites defined in standard units [1], where typically one unit, a 1U, is a 10 cm × 10 cm × 10 cm cube of mass less than 1.33 kg [2]
The thermal test set-up consisted of four major elements: the EIRSAT-1 engineering qualification model (EQM) configured for thermal testing (IUT), the test facility consisting of the thermal vacuum (TVAC) chamber and instrumentation system, mechanical ground support equipment (MGSE) required to mount the item under test (IUT) in the chamber, and electrical ground support equipment (EGSE) to provide power and communicate with the IUT during the test
A total of nine very reduced functional test (VRFT) were performed during the EIRSAT-1 EQM thermal test campaign; this is one more than in the test specification due to the extra operational hot phase being performed
Summary
CubeSats are small-scale satellites defined in standard units [1], where typically one unit, a 1U, is a 10 cm × 10 cm × 10 cm cube of mass less than 1.33 kg [2] They were initially developed as an educational tool to provide university students with the opportunity to experience the full life cycle of a space mission [3,4] as they have relatively short project timelines and are low cost when compared to large space missions [5,6]. This paper will focus on the thermal tests performed on the EQM of EIRSAT-1 at the ESA CubeSat Support Facility (CSF) in Belgium [43]. The lessons learned by the EIRSAT-1 team while preparing and completing the thermal testing and verification campaign, are presented in Section 5 and will be beneficial to the CubeSat community in qualifying their missions for spaceflight.
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