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CubeSat - Introduction
The need for telecommunications, micro-gravity
experiments, multidisciplinary academic participation and
the miniaturization of technology has made the dream closer
to reality space for academic institutions (public and private)
and business through technology integration designed reduction
of size, resources, and costs of artificial satellites. This
process will involve Cubic Satellite, known in English as
CubeSats. A CubeSat is a type of miniature satellites for
space research, which has a volume of exactly one liter weighs
no more than one kilogram, and typically uses commercial electronics.
Since 1999, California Polytechnic
University (CalPoly) by Prof.
Jordi Puig-Suari and Stanford
University by Professor
Bob Twiggs developed the CubeSat specifications to help
universities worldwide to conduct space science and exploration,
this is known as the CubeSat
standard (See Fig.1).
Fig 1. Left Prof. Jordi Puig-Suari in the center the Standard
CubeSat, and right Prof. Bob Twiggs.
There are four different types of CubeSats:
a) 0.5U, which specifies a means of unity, given the unit
in feet, b) 1U, including the drive and the standard cubic
decimeters, c) 2U, describes a pico-satellite consists of
two units, and d) 3U, is the maximum size that may have a
pico-satellite under the standard. Its main objective is to
reduce the costs of design, development, launch and operation
for experimental processes in space compared to the costs
of commercial satellites in the same or higher orbits and
to reduce the times of this process flow. These costs not
including the operation from a ground station range from $
65 thousand USD to $ 100 thousand USD, depending on the experimental
payload will and the technological characteristics of the
system. The costs are relatively low compared with costs exceeding
$ 100 million USD that require the commercial satellites,
military and explorative.
<p align="justify">To send a CubeSat in space,
is necessary flow of process from the design and manufacture
of the pico-satellite, a test phase (extreme temperatures
and vibration), and finally an institution (normally closed)
will be responsible for placing through a system of pico-satellite
deployment in space. The design and development stage of the
CubeSat is Possible through parts and components from suppliers
dedicated to the Pico-Satellite, where the market leader is
the company Pumpkin Inc.
with all round development CubeSat
Kit which is a complete experimental platform that provides
a standardized structure and ready for use in the CubeSat
(is ready to send a satellite into space that has previously
tested the minimum hardware for communications from a LEO),
a laboratory hardware testing ground station, and a software
operating system for embedded application development in the
pico-satellite. Development kits Pumpkin Company are used
by 60% of developers in the world CubeSats. Tests can be conducted
in such institutions backed aerospace international space
agencies, in the case of temperature tests, the
International Research Institute of Stanford (International
RSI) performed measurements of extreme temperature under
vacuum in cameras designed for CubeSat, where pico-satellites
are tested in conditions of -30 º to + 50 degrees Celsius.
Fig 2. CubeSats order from left to right: 1U, 1.5U, 2U, and
3U. The images belong to The CubeSat Kit 3D CAD and are the
property of Pumpkin, Inc. www.cubesatkit.com.
There are several agencies that offer the
service aerospace launch payloads into space, one is Eurockot
which offers commercial satellite launch LEO generally from
the rig from Plesetsk Russia NASA is another aerospace agency
dedicated to the launch of scientific and commercial space,
now in conjunction with the University of California have
an agreement to launch CubeSats each particular date, it is
taken as secondary loads within a deployment device space.
There are 4 types of display devices: a) P-POD (by its definition
in English Poly-Picosatellite Orbital Deployer) developed
by Stanford University and the University of California, the
system can accommodate up to 3 pico-satellites 1U; b) T-POD
(Tokyo Pico-satellite Orbital Deployer) holds a pico-satellite
single 1U, c) X-POD (experimental Push Out Deployer) was designed
by the University of Toronto and has the peculiarity to accommodate
different types of satellite as pico-satellites and nano-satellites
of arbitrary dimensions d) SPL (Single Pico-Satellite Launcher)
maintains a single CubeSat, speed of deployment can be user
defined to be 1 m / s standard, is made by Astrofein.
Figure 3. Deployer Pico-Satellite Orbital Poly (P-POD), Picture
of the University of California.
In the design and construction of coexistence
involving multidisciplinary CubeSats ideal to be developed
in academic environments that permit exploration of science
as a trigger mechanism opportunities in research groups and
work, bringing a technology impact of participating institutions
while preserving the philosophy of standardization and open
source. The education sector is fully aware that the awakening
vocations for students in an early time generate human resources
capable of performing scientific research in industry demand
and society to meet new challenges, take up old projects and
make changes and improvements to existing systems; the technology
boom presents an overview of resource use to study and understand
the means and mechanisms that move in the vicinity of the
coexistence of mankind and his environment.
OfFicial Site: www.cubesat.org
September 2009. Eng. Olmo Alonso Moreno Franco. The Robotics
Institute of Yucatan.
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