Preliminary Mission Analysis and Sub-System Design for the 16U4SBSP CubeSat Mission

The mission concept “16U4SBSP”, funded by the European Space Agency through the Sysnova campaign “Innovative Missions Concepts enabled by Swarms of Cube- Sats”, aims to demonstrate the feasibility of a swarm of 16U CubeSats for a scaled demonstration of Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP). This demonstration mission can provide wireless electric energy in kW-scale to space-to-ground or space-to-space applications. The main objective of the mission is to validate the SBSP concept and some of the involved technologies, in view of full-scale missions which could serve users in remote areas with low power requirements (<MW) or/and emergency operations in the blackout zones affected by natural or manmade hazards. The focus of this master thesis is the study of the mission’s formation flying orbital dynamics for the case of Heliotropic orbits and the study of the thermal analysis and thermal design of the CubeSats. The dynamical model used accounts for perturbations from Earth’s gravitational field up to the fourth degree, solar radiation pressure, and atmospheric drag. The configuration of the swarm includes seven CubeSats in a circular formation, with one CubeSat positioned at the center and six CubeSats distributed in a hexagonal shape around it. Heliotropic orbits are defined as sun-frozen orbits that enable extended periods of energy beaming during nighttime. Initially, the long-term evolution of the orbit is characterized. The analysis then focuses on the evolution of the relative distance variation of each CubeSat with respect to the central one within the heliotropic formation. This determines the frequency of formation control required to maintain the relative positions of each CubeSat. The findings suggest that employing a formation in a Heliotropic orbit is a suitable option for the mission, but not as cost-effective as a Sun-Synchronous orbit. For the thermal analysis, it has been used a simplified single-node steady-state lumped mass thermal analysis in order to define a baseline understanding of the thermal loads and expected temperatures of the spacecraft. A trade-off is conducted about the choice of materials to be used as passive coatings. Additionally, crucial aspects of the CubeSat design have been studied, including an illumination study for optimal star tracker placement. The work presented in the thesis contributed to prove the feasibility of the 16U4SBSP mission’s objectives representing the first step towards GW-scale SBSP, that would supply clean energy from space through wireless power transmission.