Study of a 6U CubeSat-Deployer system through FEM analysis and Environmental Tests

Alongside the growing importance that CubeSats are gaining in the space industry there is the necessity of having reliable, lightweight in-orbit deployment hardware that can be mounted on any commercial launch vehicle. The deployment of a CubeSat always occurs through the use of a mechanical system whose aim is to give a directional velocity away from the upper stage of the launch vehicle or the mothership as smoothly as possible. In this context Tyvak, a Terrain Orbital Corporation, develops a new 6U deployer which allows to significantly reduce the weight compared to its predecessors and therefore the launch costs. The CubeSat-deployer system is quite complex and it can behave differently depending on the loading conditions it is subjected to. The main purpose of this thesis work, carried out at Tyvak International headquarters, is to understand the dynamic behavior of this system under the various loading sources coming from the launch environment and especially under different integration conditions of the satellite inside the deployer. In fact the canisterized constraint typical of the deployers allows the satellite to rattle inside it even if there is only a small gap between the satellite and the main structure of the deployer while, if there aren't gaps, the satellite resonates with the deployer but only if the exciting load is lower than the friction force that constrains it to the main structure. In the first part, after a brief introduction regarding the vibration theory and the mechanical environment the system must withstand, Finite Element Method is used to identify an appropriate FE model and to conduct preliminary analysis. In the second part some of the results obtained from the two EVT campaign carried out for the Qualification Module and the Flight Module are shown and they are compared with those gathered from the preliminary analysis, in order to identify a starting point for the creation of more accurate FE models that can be used to predict the launch environment of future satellites.