BEESAT-5: A New Level of Satellite Miniaturization and Integration

Paper number

IAC-18,B4,6B,14,x48226

Author

Mr. Frank Baumann, Germany, Technische Universität Berlin

Coauthor

Mr. Nikolas Korn, Germany, Technische Universität Berlin

Coauthor

Mr. Kjell Pirschel, Germany, Technische Universität Berlin

Coauthor

Mr. Steffen Weisenberger, Germany, Technische Universität Berlin

Coauthor

Mr. Ronny Wolf, Germany, Technische Universität Berlin

Coauthor

Prof. Klaus Brieß, Germany, Technische Universität Berlin

Year

2018

Abstract

Distributed satellite systems enable novel applications like Earth observation with high temporal coverage, space-based machine-to-machine communications or radio astronomy, where the satellites form a synthesized aperture telescope. But these applications are only profitable when using highly miniaturized but still high-capacity spacecrafts. Miniaturization is achieved by multifunction component assembly, the utilization of commercial off-the-shelf parts as well as the implementation of power supply and communication buses. Essential functions of a distributed system are the communication and the relative navigation among the satellites.

At TU Berlin a picosatellite swarm mission was developed consisting of the four identical quarter-unit CubeSats BEESAT-5\ldots 8 with a mass of 330 grams each. The picosatellites were designed fully redundant and almost complete single-fault tolerant. The primary mission objective is to demonstrate a newly developed communications subsystem in the UHF band and an experimental GNSS receiver. Furthermore, the satellites contain a multifunctional star tracker and an experimental X-band transmitter. They are equipped with retroreflectors on all sides for laser ranging from ground.

BEESAT-5\ldots 8 will be one of the first quarter-unit CubeSats in space. The satellite swarm will be launched in Q3 2018 into a sun-synchronous orbit. The flight results and the verified components will be used for future nanosatellite formation and swarm missions of TU Berlin. The presentation gives a detailed insight into the satellite design and the commissioning results.

Abstract document

IAC-18,B4,6B,14,x48226.brief.pdf

Manuscript document

(absent)