Development of a sizing tool for preliminary mission analysis and design of propulsion systems for orbit control of small satellites in LEO -VLEO

The ever-growing necessity for faster and cheaper access to space, makes the building of artificial satellites to shift more and more towards small measures. The most exemplar case of small satellites is given by the so called CubeSats, i.e. modular satellites practically ‘built in blocks’ of approximately the same size and weight. Such an approach allows to fasten the design and decrease the overall project complexity, but at the same time has many limitations. The main one is equipping the satellites with a propulsion system for the control of their operative orbit. Such a task normally requires a consistent amount of propellant, and so a specific dedicated propulsion system, that weighs consistently (in terms of both mass and volume) on the budget of these small spacecrafts. The present thesis studies the feasibility of providing small satellites with a propulsion system that would enable them to perform orbit control maneuvers all along the mission duration. The concept is to create a computer tool able to carry out a rapid analysis of the satellite mission, for the determination of the needed Δv, and then a preliminary design of the main components of the required propulsion system. Different propulsion technologies can in this way be considered, being then able to do a trade-off to choose the best solution, in terms of mass and performances. Satellite models ranging from nano to mini-sat standard in LEO-VLEO missions of different durations (2, 5 and 7 years) have been used for feasibility simulations, and re-sults show that the use of some propulsion technology is possible to reach the fixed mission goals.