Related papers: Nanosatellite Design Considerations for a Mission …
Sloshing of cryogenic liquid propellants can significantly impact a spacecraft's mission safety and performance by unpredictably altering the center of mass and producing large pressure fluctuations due to the increased heat and mass…
Propellant sloshing is a well-known, but not completely mastered phenomenon in space vehicles. It is particularly critical in both microgravity environments - such as interplanetary spacecraft requiring high pointing stability - and high-g…
This paper presents a model based experimental investigation to demonstrate the usefulness of an active damping strategy to manage fluid sloshing motion in spacecraft tanks. The active damping strategy is designed to reduce the degrading…
New-generation space missions require satellites to carry substantial amounts of liquid propellant, making it essential to analyse the coupled control-structure-propellant dynamics in detail. While Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) offers…
The present study focuses on the development, application, and comparison of three computational frameworks of varying fidelities for assessing the effects of fuel sloshing in internal fuel tanks on the aeroelastic characteristics of a wing…
This paper aims to enhance the efficiency of validation and verification campaigns involving fuel sloshing phenomena. Our first contribution is the development of an open-source, high-fidelity and computationally efficient two-dimensional…
AcubeSAT is an open-source CubeSat mission aiming to explore the effects of microgravity and radiation on eukaryotic cells using a compact microfluidic lab-on-a-chip platform. It is developed by SpaceDot, a volunteer, interdisciplinary…
The rapid advancement and miniaturization of spacecraft electronics, sensors, actuators, and power systems have resulted in growing proliferation of small-spacecraft. Coupled with this is the growing number of rocket launches, with…
This paper presents an integrated Reinforcement Learning (RL) and Model Predictive Control (MPC) framework for autonomous satellite docking with a partially filled fuel tank. Traditional docking control faces challenges due to fuel sloshing…
Nutation triggered by external disturbances is an undesirable phenomenon for a spinning satellite. Passive decay in nutation angle must be achieved in such cases and benefits missions involving spin-stabilized satellites or mass-constrained…
The miniaturization of electronics, sensors and actuators has enabled the growing use of CubeSats and sub-20 kg spacecraft. Their reduced mass and volume has the potential to translate into significant reductions in required propellant and…
This paper details our journey in designing and selecting a suitable application sandboxing mechanism for a satellite under development, with a focus on small satellites. Central to our study is the development of selection criteria for…
Due to the advancement of nano-satellite technology, CubeSats and fleets of CubeSats can form an alternative to high-cost large-size satellite missions with the advantage of extended spatial coverage. One of these initiatives is the…
Micro- and nanosatellites have become popular platforms for a variety of commercial and scientific applications, but today are considered suitable mainly for short and low-priority space missions due to their low reliability. In part, this…
High-altitude balloon experiments are becoming very popular among universities and research institutes as they can be used for testing instruments eventually intended for space, and for simple astronomical observations of Solar System…
This paper investigates a swarm-based concept in which a number of nanosatellites, referred to as NanoTugs, are deployed by a mother spacecraft to capture and cooperatively stabilize and de-orbit space debris. The study focuses on the…
Nanocarriers are nanosized materials commonly used for targeted-oriented delivery of active compounds, including antimicrobials and small-molecular drugs. They equally represent fundamental and engineering challenges since sophisticated…
Accurate and stable spacecraft pointing is a requirement of many astronomical observations. Pointing particularly challenges nanosatellites because of an unfavorable surface area to mass ratio and proportionally large volume required for…
As part of the Bristol PROVE mission, a nano satellite in low Earth orbit will be required to track a ground based target during a 400 second flyover. This requires agile attitude control that will be achieved using a system of flywheels.…
To extend the limited scope of autonomy used in prior missions for operation in distant and complex environments, there is a need to further develop and mature autonomy that jointly reasons over multiple subsystems, which we term…