Browsing by Author "Monteiro, Jorge Emanuel Teló Bordalo"
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- Mission Analysis and Design of MECSE NanosatellitePublication . Monteiro, Jorge Emanuel Teló Bordalo; Guerman, Anna; Rebelo, Tiago AlexandreSince the moment humankind started venturing into the realms of space, the problems associated with Radio Frequency (RF) blackout period due to plasma sheath interactions with the spacecraft have been an unsolved issue. During this period, the spacecraft loses all the communication with the control center or satellite including voice, real-time data telemetry and GNSS navigation. Considering that continuous communication during atmospheric re-entry is crucial to ensure safety and accomplishment of manned and unmanned space missions, solutions for the mitigation of RF blackout are of high priority and a requirement for the design of future space vehicles. One solution is the use of an electromagnetic field to manipulate the plasma layer surrounding the vehicle. In this M.Sc. thesis, an innovative CubeSat mission for the manipulation of ionospheric plasma is proposed and designed. MECSE (Magneto/Electro hydrodynamics CubeSat Experiment) aims to confirm in space that the electron density of the plasma layer can be reduced through the generation of an electromagnetic field. From a systems engineering perspective, the early phases of MECSE mission are fully designed (phases 0, A and B1 of ESA’s project lifecycle). Starting with mission characterization, the scientific case is presented and the feasibility of the mission is studied based on tradespace exploration methods. Then, the mission objectives, requirements and figures of merit are defined. The mission analysis is performed considering a reference orbit from a launch survey. In the end, a preliminary design of the spacecraft is presented including the analyses performed for the subsystems, the concept of operations and the definition of system requirements. This M.Sc. thesis also focusses on the study of orbital lifetime predictions for a CubeSat. The impact of using different solar and geomagnetic activity models proposed by standard guidelines is investigated using STK and DRAMA software and compared against historical data from already decayed CubeSats. It is concluded that there are still large deviations between the results provided by different models and that the satellite parameters recommended by the guidelines are not suitable when predicting accurately the orbital lifetime of a CubeSat. The orbital lifetime of MECSE nanosatellite is predicted and the effects of variations in orbital and satellite parameters are evaluated.