Abstract
CLIMB: An educational CubeSat mission at the University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt
C. Scharlemann1, W. Treberspurg1, A. Stren1
1 University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt
Abstract
After the successful CubeSat mission, PEGASUS, the University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt (FHWN) will launch its next CubeSat CLIMB in 2025/6 as part of the Aerospace Engineering educational program. The satellite will be released into a sun synchronous orbit with 500 km altitude. Using a Field Emission Electric Propulsion (FEEP) system, provided by the company ENPULSION, the satellite’s orbit will be raised to an elliptical orbit with its apogee around 1000 km – well inside the inner Van Allen belt.
The mission payload consists of a SATDOS, a radiation monitor, developed by Seibersdorf Laboratories, and a magnetometer developed by the FHWN. The radiation monitor will continuously monitor the space radiation environment in terms of total ionizing dose (TID) and single event effects (SEE) and its impact on CLIMB’s subsystems during its yearlong ascent to, and operation in the Van Allen belt. Those in-space radiation measurements will allow a comparison with results from ground-based testing (TID, SEE). This again will allow to evaluate the quality of ground-test-based predictions of space radiation effects. Such investigations will ultimately contribute to mission safety and success for future missions. The results of several on-ground test campaigns, both TID and SEE, are presented for selected systems and components.
The second major payload of CLIMB is a magnetometer with a sensitivity of down to 10 nT. Measurements with such accuracies require the investigation of the magnetic properties of the satellite itself. For this purpose, the German company IABG provided the CLIMB team the opportunity and support to conduct measurements of the magnetic properties of an electrical model of the spacecraft at their magnetic field simulation facility (MFSA). The results of those tests indicated a magnetic dipole moment of the satellite in the range of 20 mA.m2.
Utilizing an electric propulsion system on a CubeSat has many impacts on the satellites subsystems, in particular on the thermal control system. In order to verify the numerical analysis (ESATAN) a new concept of a thermal vacuum chamber (TVC) was developed. This chamber allows the operation of the propulsion system integrated in the CubeSat during a thermal vacuum test. The paper presents initial results of this advanced TVC obtained with a thermal model of the CLIMB satellite.