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Development of the Deorbitsail Flight Model

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Development of the Deorbitsail Flight Model Development of the Deorbitsail flight model Olive R. Stohlman,∗ Mark Schenk,y and Vaios Lappasz University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH, United Kingdom Deorbitsail is a collaborative project funded through the European Commission's Sev- enth Framework Programme. A 5-by-5-metre sail will be deployed from the 10-by-10-by- 34-cm stowed satellite and demonstrate rapid deorbiting via atmospheric drag. Optimal pointing for drag will be accomplished with a compact three-axis-controlled attitude de- termination and control system. The project's central goal is in-orbit technology demon- stration of a compact design for planned deorbiting of spacecraft. This paper presents two of the engineering considerations in the development of Deor- bitsail: a practical review of the sail manufacturing and packing, and a brief trade study on solar panel configuration. Deorbitsail's deployable sail membrane is made of Kapton HN and packed into four rectangular packages using a double z-fold. Some of the challenges associated with the manufacture of this Kapton sail are discussed, including static cling and folding accuracy. The power study focuses on the limits common to the CubeSat form factor and the strict pointing requirements of the primary drag sailing mission. I. Introduction Deorbitsail is a nanosatellite technology demonstration mission, with the goal of deploying a 5-by-5-meter gossamer sail from a 3U CubeSat. Figure 1 shows the satellite in its deployed configuration. Figure 1. Depiction of the deployed Deorbitsail satellite. A promising application of large gossamer sails is to deorbit satellites from low earth orbit (LEO) by utilising atmospheric drag. Guidelines set out by international space agencies, including the European Code of Conduct for Space Debris Mitigation [1], propose a maximum deorbiting time of 25 years in order to mitigate the accumulation of space debris and ensure a sustainable orbit environment. Gossamer sails represent a low-cost and effective alternative to other deorbiting strategies, and the Deorbitsail mission is one of a competitive class of small satellites deploying multi-meter-wide drag sails in space. Deorbitsail also ∗Research fellow, Surrey Space Centre, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK, GU2 7XH, AIAA Member. yResearch fellow, Surrey Space Centre, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK, GU2 7XH zProfessor, Surrey Space Centre, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK, GU2 7XH, AIAA Member. 1 of 12 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics represents the limits of what can be achieved on a nanosatellite platform, by packaging a 3-axis ADCS, four 3.6m long deployable booms, and a 25 m2 sail membrane into a 3U CubeSat. Larger gossamer sails are being pursued by many organizations, primarily with the purpose of using the effect of solar radiation for solar sailing. Efficiency is judged by a measure similar to specific impulse: the sail's area to mass ratio must be maximized. Launched in 2010, the JAXA IKAROS mission demonstrated the first successful deployment of a solar sail; the 200 m2 sail was deployed and tensioned using centrifugal forces [2, 3]. Other large scale gossamer sail projects include the NASA/L'Garde Sunjammer [4] and the DLR Gossamer program [5]. On the scale of nanosatellites, another gossamer sail project under development at the Surrey Space Centre is CubeSail [6], which aims to demonstrate a combination of solar sailing and drag augmentation for deorbiting. A launch opportunity for Deorbitsail has been scheduled for Q3/Q4 of 2014, and manufacture of flight hardware has been initiated. Two of the engineering challenges encountered during the development process form the subject of this paper: the sail manufacturing and folding process, and the effect of the solar panel configuration on the satellite power budget. The analysis of the solar panel configuration was revisited relatively late in the design process, due to potential rescheduling of the available launch opportunity and the significant effect a specific orbit has on the Deorbitsail power budget. Outline This paper is laid out as follows. In Section II a brief overview of the Deorbitsail mission and satellite is given; further detail is found in previous papers [7, 8]. This is followed by a description of the sail manufacturing and folding process in Section III.A and a summary of the solar panel configuration study in Section III.B. Finally, the paper is concluded with lessons learned. II. Mission and Satellite Overview The primary mission objectives for Deorbitsail are to demonstrate i) the controlled deployment of a large deployable structure from a CubeSat, ii) the deorbiting capability of a gossamer sail, and iii) the efficacy of a CubeSat ADCS (Attitude Determination and Control System) that incorporates sail-based attitude control using a translation stage. Verification of mission objective (i) will be achieved by transmitting pictures of the deployed sail taken with an on-board camera, and objectives (ii) and (iii) will be reported on using on-board attitude data as well as ground observations of the orbital decay. The satellite operations during the Deorbitsail mission can be summarised as follows. 1. Deploy antennas to establish communications 2. Enable ADCS to detumble spacecraft into a Y-Thompson spin [9, 10] (using the coarse sun sensors, magnetometer and 3 magnetorquers) 3. Deploy the 4 solar panels 4. Activate ADCS Y-Thompson despinning mode to stabilise and align the spacecraft (adding data from the sun and nadir sensors and actuation of the Y-momentum wheel) 5. Deploy the 5-by-5 m gossamer sail 6. Deorbiting phase, using the conventional and sail-based attitude control systems to maintain optimal orientation for drag deorbiting A. Satellite Design In its launch configuration, the Deorbitsail design complies with the form factor of a 3U CubeSat. The tight volume constraints (a design envelope of 10×10×34 cm) have proven to be the primary design driver for the Deorbitsail subsystems. In order to achieve the mission objectives, the satellite also utilises the additional clearance provided by the ISIPOD CubeSat deployer [11] to accommodate deployable solar panels and an external magnetometer. After the satellite has detumbled into a Y-Thompson four, spin deployable solar panels are released to lie in a plane parallel to the deployed sail; see Figure 2. During the remainder of its mission the satellite orientation will be optimised to maximize aerodynamic drag, and for a given orbit the fixed configuration of 2 of 12 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Figure 2. After ejection from the CubeSat deployer, the antennas are deployed to enable communications. After initial detumbling into a Y-Thompson spin, the four solar panels are released to expose the sail and boom deployment system, and provide a field of view for the cameras of the sun and nadir sensors. the solar panels will therefore strongly affect the satellite power budget. This trade-off will be described in further detail in Section III.B. Prior to their deployment, the four carbon fibre deployable solar panels (each with 6 solar cells) serve a further purpose as a hold-down mechanism for the primary mission payloads. This dual use of the solar panels is an unusual design element of the Deorbitsail satellite, and allows a single actuation to fulfill multiple structural control purposes. As shown in Figure 3, the satellite bus is separated from the sail deployment system by a translation stage. Once the sail is deployed, this system controls the XY offset between the satellite centre of mass (CoM) and centre of pressure (CoP) of the sail. The resulting torque is used as an additional means of attitude control during deorbiting. The use of a translation stage has important implications, as the relative motion between the two parts of the spacecraft must be constrained during launch. No space is available for a dedicated hold down system, and motion is therefore limited by the ISIPOD guide rails. The guide rails contact the boom deployment mechanism and the electronics bus along their longitudinal edges, forcing their alignment to within the margin of the ISIPOD. The solar panels have a limited ability to restrain this motion through contact with the top and bottom elements of the translation stage. What is more, the solar panels are used to contain the folded sail, and keep the doors of the boom deployment system closed (which in turn hold down the coiled booms). It is necessary to minimise bulging of the CFRP solar panels under these internal loads, to enable a smooth ejection from the CubeSat deployer. Lastly, an important consequence of this configuration is that three separate rail sections will engage with the deployment guides of the CubeSat deployer: along the bus, along the middle of the solar panels, and along the boom deployment mechanism. 1. Satellite Bus The electronic systems in the satellite bus manage electrical power, attitude control and communications. Most components are commercial off-the-shelf (COTS). The transceiver is the ISIS TRXUV VHF/UHF, used in combination with the ISIS deployable antenna; the EPS is GomSpace NanoPower P31u, and the ADCS stack is a sister model of the CubeAim used for the QB50 mission. The ADCS includes the CubeComputer OBC, CubeSense for attitude determination (coarse sun sensors, sun sensor, nadir sensor, magnetometer) and attitude control systems including three orthogonally placed magnetorquers and a Y-momentum wheel. In 3 of 12 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Figure 3. The Deorbitsail stack. addition, the ADCS incorporates the translation stage for CoM/CoP attitude control. The control objectives will change throughout the mission, and different control algorithms and actuators will be used. 2. Sail Payload The primary payload for the Deorbitsail mission is the 5 × 5 m sail, which consists of 4 quadrants which are deployed and tensioned by 4 diagonal deployable masts or booms. As the booms deploy, they unfold the packaged sail and draw it taut in its fully deployed configuration.
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