End-of-life disposal of sub-3U CubeSat with a printed thin-film vacuum arc thruster
End-of-life disposal of sub-3U CubeSat with a printed thin-film vacuum arc thruster
We present the operation of the CubeSat De-orbiting All-Printed Propulsion System (Cube-de-ALPS), a thin-film Vacuum Arc Thruster being developed at the University of Southampton in collaboration with the European Space Agency to provide robust de-orbiting capability to sub-3U CubeSats. It is composed of a flexible substrate on which coplanar arrays of vacuum arc micro-thrusters (micro-VAT) are printed, alongside small supporting electronic subsystems. In particular, we focus on the operations of a Cube-de-ALPS End-Of-Life disposal for an under-actuated spacecraft with uncontrolled spin. In this scenario, a single micro-VAT will ignite every time it points in the direction of the forward velocity vector. Orbital lifetime estimates using simplified dynamics show Cube-de-ALPS can shorten the de-orbiting time from 800 km altitude by up to two orders of magnitude. Due to the design, the micro-thrusters are not aligned with the centre of mass, thus imparting a torque on the spacecraft. We use this in conjunction with a closed-loop thrusting law, to control the spin of the satellite during de-orbiting. These preliminary results are compared to high-fidelity simulations including full six degrees of freedom coupled attitude and orbital dynamics to confirm the viability of the concept.
CubeSat, End-of-life Disposal, Elecrtic Micro-propulsion, Orbit-Attitude Simulations
Saddul, Kash
81831a7e-b96b-43dd-b366-8b40ca9935f8
Wittig, Alexander
3a140128-b118-4b8c-9856-a0d4f390b201
Saletes, James
3e69740c-2938-47e5-add4-14d5b31581e6
Kim, Minkwan
18ed9a6f-484f-4a7c-bf24-b630938c1acc
22 September 2022
Saddul, Kash
81831a7e-b96b-43dd-b366-8b40ca9935f8
Wittig, Alexander
3a140128-b118-4b8c-9856-a0d4f390b201
Saletes, James
3e69740c-2938-47e5-add4-14d5b31581e6
Kim, Minkwan
18ed9a6f-484f-4a7c-bf24-b630938c1acc
Saddul, Kash, Wittig, Alexander, Saletes, James and Kim, Minkwan
(2022)
End-of-life disposal of sub-3U CubeSat with a printed thin-film vacuum arc thruster.
In International Astronautical Congress 2022.
Record type:
Conference or Workshop Item
(Paper)
Abstract
We present the operation of the CubeSat De-orbiting All-Printed Propulsion System (Cube-de-ALPS), a thin-film Vacuum Arc Thruster being developed at the University of Southampton in collaboration with the European Space Agency to provide robust de-orbiting capability to sub-3U CubeSats. It is composed of a flexible substrate on which coplanar arrays of vacuum arc micro-thrusters (micro-VAT) are printed, alongside small supporting electronic subsystems. In particular, we focus on the operations of a Cube-de-ALPS End-Of-Life disposal for an under-actuated spacecraft with uncontrolled spin. In this scenario, a single micro-VAT will ignite every time it points in the direction of the forward velocity vector. Orbital lifetime estimates using simplified dynamics show Cube-de-ALPS can shorten the de-orbiting time from 800 km altitude by up to two orders of magnitude. Due to the design, the micro-thrusters are not aligned with the centre of mass, thus imparting a torque on the spacecraft. We use this in conjunction with a closed-loop thrusting law, to control the spin of the satellite during de-orbiting. These preliminary results are compared to high-fidelity simulations including full six degrees of freedom coupled attitude and orbital dynamics to confirm the viability of the concept.
Text
EOL disposal of a sub-3U CubeSat using a thin-film vaccuum arc thruster
- Author's Original
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Published date: 22 September 2022
Keywords:
CubeSat, End-of-life Disposal, Elecrtic Micro-propulsion, Orbit-Attitude Simulations
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Local EPrints ID: 472810
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/472810
PURE UUID: 84463ded-ba1d-4436-a55d-a6f72ff3c7a1
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Date deposited: 19 Dec 2022 17:47
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 04:04
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Contributors
Author:
Kash Saddul
Author:
James Saletes
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