Study and Analysis of a Nanosatellite Configuration

The work of this thesis concerns the development of the structural subsystem and the realization of the internal configuration of the SPEISAT spacecraft, developed as part of the Spei Satelles mission, carried out by a team of Politecnico di Torino for the Italian Space Agency, on behalf of Vatican City. Such task has been conducted in a time span of 4 months through an iterative process based on the concurrent engineering philosophy, with the goal of achieving the realization of a shell capable of housing the different subsystems while withstanding the loads caused by the launch and the harsh conditions of the space environment. After the identification of the design drivers and the applicable documents, it has been possible to determine the requirements that would have led to the design of the structure and the internal configuration. The work has been carried out in the Solidworks environment through a series of iterations defined by the various inputs received by the different subsystems’ groups regarding their area of expertise. With the approaching of the conclusion of the design phase, a validation of the model has been performed, and here presented, through Finite Element Analysis in the MSC Apex and MSC Patran environment using the MSC Nastran solver. Subsequently, the Assembly, Integration, Verification and Test (AIV&T) activities have been carried out, in parallel with the finalization of minor configuration aspects, such as the refinement of the cable management. The major tasks have lastly reached a conclusion with the environmental tests. In the matter of this thesis the results derived from the random vibration test are analysed, also to assess the validity of the Finite Element Model used for the analysis. Finally, an assessment of the configuration is provided through the review of the AIV&T activity, as well as thanks to the telemetries correctly sent by the spacecraft, launched on June 12th 2023. The latter, in particular, allowed to determine whether the adopted configuration choices have proven to be effective, specifically regarding the thermal aspects. In conclusion, it can be said that the structural design and the configuration layout developed for SPEISAT have proven to be satisfactory, as all requirements are met and the satellite is executing its intended mission as expected.