Design and Verification of a CubeSat Ground Station

Small satellite platforms such as CubeSats are invaluable platforms for exploring space for research, military, and civilian purposes. Their small size, reduced cost, load, complexity, and flexibility allow various kinds of missions previously impossible. In support of its scientific missions, Politecnico di Torino’s CubeSatTeam created the CubeSat Control Centre (C3) with extremely clear and well defined mission requirements: to build a ground station at the Politecnico di Torino under 30k€ capable of tracking and communicating with VHF/UHF/S/X-band low-Earth orbit CubeSats to be operated by students and non-professionals in pursuit of CubeSatTeam’s missions with a certain level of autonomy. This report details the design and verification of C3’s CCSDS-compliant softwaredefined ground station. First, mission requirements and key performance indices are defined. Then, ground station requirements are derived. Next, its functional architecture is devised and followed by its trade-off analysis, leading to the ground station’s physical architecture and a discussion about its design trade-offs. Following this discussion, analytical methods and numerical simulations are applied to estimate relevant performance metrics, such as mass, power, cost, and link budgets. Along the same line, the communication software is briefly discussed. Afterwards, the ground station’s assembly, integration, and verification (AIV) procedures are developed and executed, culminating in the verification of components and units by testing, and of the ground-to-satellite communication link by simulation. To conclude, a preliminary data budget for future CubeSatTeam missions is suggested.