Design of multipurpose measurement system for Nanosatellites testing

This thesis project focused on the design of a measurement system able to test
attitude control of the academic AraMiS satellite. AraMiS, acronym for Modular
Architecture for Satellites, is a project started in 2006 at the Politecnico di Torino.
The aim of the project is to realize small satellites with a really modular structure.
Modularity allows a significant decrease in the cost of the project itself and thus
provides the university with the opportunity to become interested in space. The cost
of a space mission is, in fact, the main obstacle facing the common interest in space,
by companies and universities. The idea behind this project is to develop dedicated
interconnected and distributed units, built with commercial off-the-shelf components
(COTS) components, in order to increase fault tolerance and allow a decent
performance degradation, while maintaining the costs at acceptable levels. Small
artificial satellites are generally subdivided according to their weight. In particular, it
is about micro-satellite, when the mass of the satellite is between 10 and 100 Kg, it is
nano-satellite, when the mass is between 1 and 10 Kg, it is called pico-satellite, when
the mass is between 0.1-1 Kg. The most efficient way to reduce the cost of a small
satellite project is to reduce project costs as much as possible and not recurring to
manufacturing. These costs, in fact, represent over 90% of the total budget. Their
reduction can only be achieved through the sharing of design between a large number
of space missions. The re-use of projects is the logic behind the AraMiS project, the
development of a modular architecture consisting of a small number of flexible
modules that can be reused in different missions. Reusing the same module over
several times allows you to subdivide project, qualification, and testing costs, and
reduce waiting times before launch.
The most critical part of low-cost spacecraft project is the almost complete lack of
tests, due for several reason, like complexity, time and cost of test equipment. Hence
the idea to realize a low cost multi-purpose measurement system able to model
mainly attitude control of nano-satellite, but also other parameters. To provide a
wide range of tests on nano-satellite has been chosen to design a measurement system
capable to measure position, forces, magnetic field and temperature.