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Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering

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search.filters.applied.f.advisor: Lightsey, E. Glenn × End date: 2017 × Item Type: Publication × search.filters.applied.f.isOrgUnitOfPublicationTitle: Space Systems Design Laboratory (SSDL) × search.filters.applied.f.isSeriesOfPublicationTitle: Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering ×

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Flyby Trajectory Analysis and Thermal Simulation of a Venus Atmospheric Probe

2017-12-01 , Selvaratnam, Roshan

Cupid’s Arrow is a proposed interplanetary Venus mission aimed at sampling the noble gases in its atmosphere. These inert elements can provide an insight into the history of the planet’s formation and provide a reference for comparison with the Earth. The mission is comprised of a mothership and an atmospheric sample collection probe. This study is focused on the latter which will be deployed into Venus’ atmosphere and descend to an altitude of 120 km. The thermal environment of the Venusian exosphere is the primary driver of the probe design both in terms of its structure and material composition. The mission architecture being considered for this study takes advantage of a gravity assist flyby trajectory. The probe will be dropped off as a secondary payload en route to the spacecraft’s primary destination. The entry conditions at Venus and the trajectory of the probe relative to the mothership were determined using 2-body orbital mechanics. Using planar equations of motion, the probe’s entry into Venus’ atmosphere was simulated to predict the thermal environment that it would encounter. Initial results show a peak heat rate of approximately 220.3297 W/cm2 , a peak deceleration of 2.7654 Earth g’s and a total heat load of 15535 J/cm2 . The results of the thermal environment model and relative trajectory analysis were used to validate the baseline communications and TPS design. In addition to Venus, this mission concept could be used to explore other planetary atmospheres, especially those frequented by interplanetary flybys.

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Extension of the GMAT analysis report to the formation with both CubeSats

2002-06 , Dupont, Agathe

This study is part of the National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored VISORS (Virtual Super-resolution Optics with Reconfigurable Swarms) space physics mission project. The goal of the mission is to detect and study fundamental regions of energy release in the solar corona. The mission engages a formation of two flying 6U CubeSats. One of the spacecrafts will support the optical package for observation while the second will contain the detection instrument. The simulation of the spacecrafts' trajectory is an essential step in the development of the mission. This study allows to verify the theoretical training trajectory and to ensure the reliability of the mission. More particularly, we verify the behavior of both CubeSats from one relative to the other and their trajectory in the different possible configurations. We will also analyze the power generation and the influence of the RAAN parameter. The last point consists in evaluating the duration of antennas contact between both spacecrafts. Both configurations considered correspond to the two possible orbits of the mission: a standby orbit and a science orbit for observation. Results will allow to obtain a precise analysis of the objectives of the mission in terms of feasibility and will allow some adjustments of the parameters studied to date. This report is based on the work of the Georgia Tech team and the other participating universities. The work and the code used for this study is based on a development made by Antoine Paletta for a single CubeSat of the formation. The results obtained are in line with the continuity of the VISORS project whose work is becoming more precise for a launch of the mission planned in 2024

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User Guide and Status Update for Small Satellite Communication System at Georgia Tech

2017-04-28 , Choi, Thomas

The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) is scheduled to support five different small satellite missions within the next three-year frame (2017 to 2020). Because many missions will share the same ground station system, a flexible and reliable ground station system has been developed at Georgia Tech campus and Georgia Tech Research Institute facility since Fall 2015. In addition to the missions expected to fly, more mission concepts are being developed which could be funded and become actual flight missions. Proper trade study and budgeting is necessary to select a proper communication hardware and establish a link that is functional and efficient. This paper is written to provide a user guide for current and potential communication subsystem engineers for small satellite mission teams at Georgia Tech, who will utilize the ground station system, select flight hardware according to requirements, and test communication links.

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Development of the evolved common hardware bus (TECHBus)

2016-07-28 , Francis, Parker

This thesis presents the design and analysis of a small spacecraft bus for use by the Georgia Tech Space Systems Design Lab. It is designed with research projects in mind, and levies the previous design work of The University of Texas at Austin's Texas Spacecraft Lab. The bus offers capabilities that are competitive to currently available commercial small spacecraft busses. The system has been designed with a variety of missions in mind, and is shown to be capable of completing several past missions that each had a customized spacecraft bus. Additional effort was placed into improving the bus' robustness and reliability to a level that has yet to be realized on CubeSats. Redundant components and software algorithms are utilized to ensure system functionality in the event of a component failure. The spacecraft bus has also been developed with the university engineering and research environment in mind. The student-built system's reliability and integrity is developed over the course of many tests, rigorous quality assurance processes, and through the use of heritage flight components. The redundancy and system integration architecture offers an unmatched 98% reliability value for one year missions; this is a 22% increase over typical single-string architectures. Each payload accommodated and each mission flown will add to the bus' heritage as approximately 95% of the spacecraft bus hardware is common between missions. For these reasons, the TECHBus is a novel system that is unique in the current CubeSat bus market, and will provide a powerful platform for space systems research and education at Georgia Tech's Space Systems Design Lab.

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