Unified approach to small satellites for Earth sciences applications

Información del proyecto

Identificador del acuerdo de subvención: INTAS-94-2488

Proyecto cerrado

Fecha de inicio 1 Septiembre 1995

Fecha de finalización 30 Junio 1997

Financiado con arreglo a

• International Association for the promotion of cooperation with scientists from the independent states of the former Soviet Union (INTAS), 1993-

Coste total € 0,00

Aportación de la UE € 29 120,00

Coordinado por

UNIVERSITY OF ROME "LA SAPIENZA"
Italy

Exploitable results

Unified approach to small satellites for Earth sciences applications

The objective of this project was to define a space platform applicable to different kinds of small payloads operating on several orbits. It appears that some spacecraft equipment, for instance the power system and the thermal control, are mainly payload dependent. Others subsystems, for instance the attitude control system, strongly depend on the selected orbit, which is dictated by the payload on board. Therefore, it is clear the interest to study the potential standardisation of these system components in order to reduce the cost and the risk of the major spacecraft items. As a fist step, a quite large analysis of possible payloads devoted to the Earth Science has been performed, in order to identify their range of requirements. Life science has also been considered, with the analysis of the life behaviour in microgravity conditions, to be performed by means of a bioreactor payload. Then, this study moved to the definition of a spacecraft design making use of a reduced number of parts, with flexible characteristics. These subsystems should be used in the build up of small or very small satellites devoted to low Earth orbit missions. The extension to the operations in high elliptic orbits, especially interesting for communication purposes (as the TUNDRA case) was considered too. The design of a minisatellite has been stressed in all the subsystems. Structure, thermal, communications subsystems components have been identified and detailed in such a way to outline a solution suitable for a large class of payloads and orbits. A special attention was devoted to the attitude control by means of a gravity gradient stabilisation system (GGACS), which behaviour has been carefully simulated and structural composition specified. The mission operation aspect was considered too: non-INTAS funding, made available by one of the partners, allowed for designing, building and testing of a small ground station, which has been also instrumental to this INTAS project. Above all, this project was quite successful in the improvement of the scientific links between the partners, combining their technical experiences and different backgrounds, and enabling interesting scientific contacts, still active today.