The Evolution from Design to Verification of the Antenna System and Mechanisms in the AcubeSAT mission

AcubeSAT is an open-source CubeSat mission aiming to explore the effects of microgravity and radiation on eukaryotic cells using a compact microfluidic LoC platform. It is developed by SpaceDot, a volunteer, interdisciplinary student team at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and supported by...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2023-10
Main Authors: Bountzioukas, Panagiotis, Kikas, Georgios, Tsiolakis, Christoforos, Stoupis, Dimitrios, Chatziargyriou, Eleftheria, Hatzopoulos, Alkis, Kourampa-Gottfroh, Vasiliki, Karakosta-Amarantidou, Ilektra, Mavropoulos, Aggelos, Ioannis-Nikolaos Komis, Kita, Afroditi, Palma, David, Franchi, Loris
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Colleges & universities
Communications systems
Cubesat
Decision analysis
Gravitational effects
Microgravity
Microstrip antennas
Systems design
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:AcubeSAT is an open-source CubeSat mission aiming to explore the effects of microgravity and radiation on eukaryotic cells using a compact microfluidic LoC platform. It is developed by SpaceDot, a volunteer, interdisciplinary student team at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and supported by the "Fly Your Satellite! 3" program of the ESA Education Office. The scientific data of the mission is comprised of microscope images captured through the on-board integrated camera setup. As the total size of the payload data is expected to be close to 2GB over 12 months, a fast and efficient downlink fulfilling the restrictive power, cost and complexity budgets is required. Currently, there is no open-source communications system design which fully supports these specific constraints, so we opted to develop our own solutions. The antenna system underwent multiple iterations as the design matured, a process highly aided by the feedback received from the ESA experts. The final communications system configuration consists of an S-band microstrip antenna operating at 2.4GHz and a UHF deployable antenna, for the payload data and TM&TC respectively, both in-house designed. In this paper, we will present AcubeSAT's antenna system iterations that span over 3 years, as well as the rationale and analysis results behind each. The development decisions will be highlighted throughout the paper in an effort to aid in the future development of such a low-cost CubeSat mission communications system.
ISSN:2331-8422