An Overview of Cube-Satellite Propulsion Technologies and Trends

Abstract

CubeSats provide a cost effective means to perform scientific and technological studies in space. Due to their affordability, CubeSat technologies have been diversely studied and developed by educational institutions, companies and space organizations all over the world. The CubeSat technology that is surveyed in this paper is the propulsion system. A propulsion system is the primary mobility device of a spacecraft and helps with orbit modifications and attitude control. This paper provides an overview of micro-propulsion technologies that have been developed or are currently being developed for CubeSats. Some of the micro-propulsion technologies listed have also flown as secondary propulsion systems on larger spacecraft. Operating principles and key design considerations for each class of propulsion system are outlined. Finally, the performance factors of micro-propulsion systems have been summarized in terms of: first, a comparison of thrust and specific impulse for all propulsion systems; second, a comparison of power and specific impulse, as also thrust-to-power ratio and specific impulse for electric propulsion systems.

Minimum-Fuel Control Strategy for Spacecraft Formation Reconfiguration via Finite-Time Maneuvers

“…In addition, the magnitude of the acceleration vector is assumed to vary between f min 3 × 10 −5 m∕s 2 and f max 3 × 10 −4 m∕s 2 . Considering a mass of 100 kg for both spacecraft, the preceding acceleration values are compatible with different classes of lowthrust propulsion system, ranging from Hall-effect propulsion system to radio-frequency ion thrusters [35,36]. Moreover, the deputy onboard thrusters are oriented in such a way to guarantee a thrust along both directions of all axes of RTN reference frame.…”

“…x MILP η; τ T with η and τ defined in Eq. (35), and the same extreme values of control accelerations used in the preceding validation test cases are imposed. Figure 7 illustrates the control profile obtained by the MILP in the along-track and cross-track directions, which leads to Δv Tot 1.2345 m∕s.…”

“…C and III.D, respectively, are ignored, i.e., x MILP η; τ T , with η and τ defined in Eq. (35). In fact, when these constraints are included in the formulation, the performance of the control strategy does not depend only on the number of subintervals but rather on the additional user-defined parameters N I , N s , and N t , and on the dimension of the exclusion box R ca .…”

“…(51-54), whereazs the optimizer state vector is x MILP η; τ T , with η and τ defined in Eq. (35). Hence, the formulation involves 6N d binary variables and 6N d real variables.…”

FORESAIL‐1 CubeSat Mission to Measure Radiation Belt Losses and Demonstrate Deorbiting

“…Using high-powered lasers (either ground-or satellite-based) to exert radiation pressure, or directly ablate the surface material of space debris (a so-called "Laser Broom") has been a research project in both civilian (Bekey, 1997;Phipps et al, 2012) and military (Campbell, 2000) projects. Compact propulsion methods possibly allowing deorbiting of nanosatellites include miniaturized pulsed plasma and Hall effect thrusters, which have reached commercial technological readiness, but still require propellants and a sizeable energy budget (Tummala & Dutta, 2017). Photonic solar sails have been investigated for propellantless propulsion and used successfully for interplanetary missions (Tsuda et al, 2013), as well as multiple nanosatellite missions (Lappas et al, 2011) with mixed success.…”