STRATHcube

STRATHcube is the flagship project of StrathAIS, and aims to launch the first Scottish student-led CubeSat into space. This mission will encourage increased responsibility and sustainability in the space environment.

CubeSat

The ‘NewSpace’ revolution has led to more launch opportunities and cheaper off-the-shelf components. As a consequence, the rate at which objects are being launched into orbit has significantly increased. A large proportion of these new objects are due to satellite mega-constellations, and concern is growing over the congestion of the space environment. To combat this, the idea of Space Situational Awareness (SSA) is being employed across the space sector. SSA is concerned with three primary areas for space debris mitigation:

  • Implementation of preventative measures in the form of guidelines

  • Accurate tracking and cataloguing of debris to prevent collisions with active satellites

  • Removal of debris to minimise the growing congestion in populated orbits

STRATHcube is developing two payloads to target the current limitations in Space Situational Awareness:

  1. An antenna to demonstrate in-orbit space debris detection

  2. A novel sensor package that will analyse the CubeSat fragmentation during re-entry to ensure Design for Demise

Since the project’s inception in May 2020, progress has been rapid and a preliminary design of STRATHcube has been completed.

First, a high-level trade-off analysis was conducted which allowed an extensive number of design options for the CubeSat to be considered. This was followed by a more detailed, subsystem level trade-off in parallel with the payload development.

The combination of these two trade-off analyses allowed the optimum configuration for the CubeSat design to be determined in terms of feasibility and scientific value.

The Mission

The Concept of Operations (CONOPs) diagram below gives a high-level overview of how STRATHcube’s mission works. The CONOPs is important as it shows what happens in our mission, when it happens, and where it happens.

STRATHcube’s mission is split into roughly three phases. The first phase - Launch and Early Operations (LEOPS) - is where the spacecraft is deployed and a communications link with Earth is attempted to be established.

The next phase is the nominal operation of the CubeSat, where the focus is to operate our primary payload and detect as much debris as possible!

After the primary payload’s work is done, the mission concludes with the re-entry phase, where our secondary experiment occurs. As we need to transmit and record data when the spacecraft is effectively in a big ball of fire, we used some clever reconfiguration of the solar panels – as has been done by other CubeSat missions – to make STRATHcube’s motion stable.

After watching the fragmentation of our solar panels and transmitting the data to a satellite constellation above us, our mission is complete!

The STRATHcube Mission Concept of Operations (CONOPs)

The STRATHcube Mission Concept of Operations (CONOPs)