PowerSat
November 3rd 2020:
PowerSat’s Systems Engineering (SE) team is currently preparing for a systems requirements review (SRR) later this month, following which, the project will enter a detailed design phase. This review will validate the work that has been done so far to bring the project from an idea to a conceptual realization. “Systems Engineering” is the process of modeling a project (in this case our spacecraft) with requirements, defining how subsystems function and interact with each other, scheduling a mission timeline, and other critical tasks that are necessary to organize the team and realize its goals.
PowerSat started over the summer through meetings with DcubeD to determine the primary mission objectives: operating their deployable solar array in space and logging data on its power generation. Since the solar array will generate much more power than any of our previous missions, an MPPT system capable of handling up to 100W was deemed necessary and is currently in development for PowerSat. The solar array, taking up 1U of space when stowed, will extend out and unfurl in a short deployment sequence. To record acceleration and vibrational data from the satellite during deployment, the team decided upon mounting inertial measurement units (IMUs) on the satellite. Additionally, two cameras will be mounted to take pictures of the solar array post-deployment.
October 7th 2020:
Powersat's Electrical Power System (EPS) team is developing an advanced power system that implements Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) for efficient, high-power generation in orbit. Their work was recently featured at Cal Poly's SURP Symposium, for which they created this poster outlining their impressive accomplishments:
August–September 2020:
PowerSat is a new and developing partnership project between the Cal Poly CubeSat Lab and Deployables Cubed in Germany. PowerSat aims at demonstrating the deployment of a large solar array to produce up to 100W of power. For Deployables Cubed, this project serves as the next big step in proving their technology readiness by testing their deployable structure in space.
For the CubeSat Laboratory, the project serves as a stepping stone for in-house development of a new high power electrical power system using maximum power point tracking. Development of such technology is essential not only for PowerSat, but also for the Laboratory’s future deep space missions. This project is partially supported by the Aerospace Engineering Department as well as CENG under the Summer Undergraduate Research Program.