Implementation of a Simulation Environment for Software and Hardware Simulation of Power Management for a Lunar Small Satellite Mission

Abstract

The University of Stuttgart plans an all electrical small satellite lunar mission. The usage of an electric propulsion system for the Earth-Moon transfer results in high and non-transient power demands while power input is dependent of the spacecraft orientation due to fixed mounted solar panels. A typical methodology designing a power supply system for a small satellite is to identify power management options and alternatives based on characteristic configurationally parameters. On one hand low battery capacities result in volume and mass savings but on the other hand in operation limitations like a specific sequence of successive operations and its duration. The engineering challenge of small satellite power supply system design is to optimize the trade-off between hardware limitations (volume and mass) and mission power requirements to fulfill the technical and scientific mission objectives. Therefore a power management software simulator is used to visualize effects on power management for different designs of power supply system and other satellite subsystems. By iterative hardware oriented optimization an adequate power supply system design was found.