Possible applications of the “Broglio balance” for aeronomy experiments on board of university nanosatellites

Paper number

IAC-08.B4.4.B2

Author

Prof. Fabio Santoni, Italy

Coauthor

Dr. Fabrizio Piergentili, University of Bologna, Italy

Coauthor

Prof. Filippo Graziani, University of Rome "La Sapienza", Italy

Year

2008

Abstract

The Group of Astrodynamics of University of Rome “La Sapienza” (GAUSS) established at Scuola di Ingegneria Aerospaziale the research and education program UNISAT, in which PhD and graduate students have the opportunity to gain hands on experience on small space missions.
Four university satellites (UNISAT, UNISAT-2, UNISAT-3, UNISAT-4), weighting about 10 kg, have been designed, manufactured, tested and launched every two years since 2000 in the framework of this program. The satellite UNISAT-3, launched on June 29th 2004 is still operative after almost four years from launch and the data are received from the University of Rome Ground Station on a regularly basis. Unfortunately, the satellite UNISAT-4 did not reach the orbital phase, because of the failure of the launch vehicle in 2006.
Scuola di Ingegneria Aerospaziale pioneered the field university satellites, designing, building, testing and launching its own satellites back in the sixties, when the San Marco Program was established in cooperation with NASA. The aim of the San Marco program was the measurement of neutral atmospheric density at low altitudes, using an extremely accurate instrument, “the Broglio drag balance”, ideated and proposed to NASA by Prof. Luigi Broglio, Dean of the School at that time. The last San Marco satellite has been launched in 1988.
The opportunity being offered by the VEGA Maiden Launch has been enthusiastically welcome by the GAUSS group for two main reasons. First, because scaling down our satellites from 10kg to 1kg and join the Cubesats community was in our programs already. As a matter of fact we are designing a scaled version of UNISAT (UNIcubeSAT) for ours hands-on purposes. Second, because the orbit of the cubesats launched by the VEGA Maiden Launch enters in the Earth’s atmosphere down to 350 km, offering an opportunity to perform in situ atmospheric density measurements. 
The VEGA Maiden Launch could give the opportunity to continue our aeronomy studies tradition, installing a renewed version of the Broglio drag balance on a Cubesat. This experiment is very well suited for a university student-built satellite and recent advances in micro and nano instrumentation devices allow to scale down the original Broglio drag balance design to fit inside the small volume available in Cubesats.
The paper deals with the cubesat satellite subsystems design, mission profile and key features of the experiment showing that meaningful measurements of the neutral atmospheric density can be obtained in orbit, within the accuracy limitations imposed by the cubesat power and volume constraints.

Abstract document

IAC-08.B4.4.B2.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-08.B4.4.B2.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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