Preliminary Design of a Stand-Alone Mars CubeSat Mission Integrating DLR In-House Technologies
H. Juan Marí (TU Delft - Aerospace Engineering)
R. Noomen – Mentor (TU Delft - Astrodynamics & Space Missions)
T.M. Ho – Graduation committee member (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR))
B.T.C. Zandbergen – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Space Systems Egineering)
E. van Kampen – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Control & Simulation)
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Abstract
CubeSat missions have been deployed to cislunar space and beyond, paving the way for the next significant advancement: a dedicated CubeSat mission to explore a planet near Earth. To contribute to this goal, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) has developed radiation-hardened small satellite technologies, including communications, power and onboard computer subsystems. This study presents a stand-alone Mars exploration mission using the CubeSat standard that will demonstrate DLR’s in-house technologies. This mission will perform an independent transfer to the Red Planet, achieve orbital insertion, and conduct measurements on its lower atmosphere and gravity field. A system concept has been created by integrating the in-house technologies, investigating the necessary Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components, and performing the mission analysis to assess the feasibility of the mission. The resulting 12U CubeSat has a 20.8 kg wet mass, 6.3 km/s low-thrust maneuvering capability and can generate up to 90 W of power at Mars. The proof-of-concept mission is planned for a 4-year duration.