CubeSat Constellation Analysis for Data Relaying

<p>Current CubeSat communication technology limits the amount of time, and number of accesses with ground stations. It has been proposed to use a constellation of CubeSats to improve relay performance and increase the number of accesses between a CubeSat and ground stations. By using the spatial and temporal analysis features of STK, coupled with the STK/Matlab interface a robust tool was created to analyze the performance of CubeSat constellations based on a store-and-forward communications model which is not currently supported by the STK Engine. Utilizing the Connect messaging format through a socket connection on the local machine, a Matlab graphical user interface, called SATCAT, was constructed in order to provide a user with the ability to control many aspects of the STK Engine externally. A function was created to use three Time Ordered Access (TOA) reports from STK to determine how long it would take for data to be relayed from a target to a ground station through a constellation of CubeSats. Three sample scenarios were created to demonstrate the use and performance analysis capabilities of SATCAT. The performance of a single CubeSat was analyzed and compared to the performance of a three CubeSat constellation and a thirty-seven CubeSat constellation. It was shown that a constellation of three CubeSats decreased the average relay time from 328 minutes to 149 minutes and a constellation of thirty-seven CubeSats further reduced the average relay time to only 3 minutes. While decreasing the average relay time, the constellation of three CubeSats also increased the number of accesses over a twenty-four hour period from 6 to 36, and the constellation of thirty-seven CubeSats allowed for 564 accesses.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

MS in Aerospace Engineering

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Aerospace Engineering

Year dc:date.available

2011

Author dc:creator

• Smalarz, Bradley Ryan

Contributors dc:contributor

• Eric A. Mehiel

• cubesat
• constellation
• relay
• communication
• satellite
• Other Aerospace Engineering
• Space Vehicles

Identifier

10.15368/theses.2011.208

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.calpoly.edu:theses-1691