Technical constrains for a low cost femto-satellite launcher

摘要

Femto-satellites are a very promising new category of satellites with mass below 100 grams. At present there are no specific femto-satellite launchers. A closer example to this concept is the PERSEUS launcher by the CNES, which is still under design. PERSEUS will be able to launch 10 kilograms to a 250 kilometers Low Earth Orbit. Consequently, PERSEUS is oversized for launching femto-satellites. The strong of Femto-satellites are the multi-point of view when they work as swarm. They can monitorize atmospheric properties, specially attractive if they are used in arrays getting simultaneous samples from different places and orbits in the atmosphere. Other applications are the monitoring of disasters, educational purposes or testing of specific space components in true conditions due to inexpensive and simple architecture. femto-satellites are, by concept, low cost devices. A specific femto-satellite launcher has to be designed under that scenario. Consequently, the launcher's design must be simple and robust, avoiding redundancies and using conventional materials and Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components. The flight management unit can be suppressed by controlling flight from the payload. Sophisticated manufacture processes will also be discarded, in order to reduce the overall cost. In this paper we will discuss the technical and engineering constrains for such a launcher that opens a new space market segment. Preliminary designs developed by the WikiSat group will be also shown. WikiSat group is enrolled in the N-Prize. The study presented covers many fields such as: Chemicals of solid propellant, Use of low cost materials, Fluid dynamics, Nozzle design, Thermal transfer and ablative aspects, Launch trajectory, Hazards areas, New components space qualification and Low-cost Fast-prototyping Small-pay load space projects management.