Within the last two decades, Small Satellites have taken the space industry by storm. Representing a natural shift towards a more agile and accessible platform for exploring our universe. Today, CubeSats and Small Satellites are valuable technology demonstrations and scientific testbeds. Hosting a variety of novel payloads, including high resolution, cryogenically cooled IR remote sensors, in-situ space weather probes, active sounding radars, and many others. In addition, constellations and Swarms of Small Satellites promise unprecedented coverage of our near-earth environment with deep-space CubeSats exploring the Cis-Lunar region and beyond. Fueling this progress are recent advances in satellite technology, such as energy-dense power generation and storage, high-performance onboard processing, fast telemetry links, and the miniaturization of cryogenic cryocoolers for Hyperspectral LWIR remote imaging. Modern 12U & 16U CubeSats can generate more than ⁓200 W of power in a form factor no larger than a shoe box. Ultimately, the promise of Small Satellites as a low-cost, fast-to-space solution for advanced scientific payloads comes at the price of ever-increasing power densities and a unique thermal challenge, which the next generation of thermal control technologies must face. This paper will focus on active thermal control as an integrated system and service and will introduce the Active Thermal Architecture MPFL technology as well as the upcoming ACMES mission.
Enabling the next generation of advanced small satellites through active thermal control
Small Satellites Systems and Services Symposium (4S 2024) ; 2024 ; Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Proc. SPIE ; 13546
2025-03-20
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
Enabling Power Technologies for Small Satellites
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