Abstract
On October 22nd 2008, the VERTICAL (VERification and Test of the Initiation of CubeSats After Launch) experiment was flown on the REXUS 4 sounding rocket mission at Esrange in Kiruna, Sweden. The experiment’s objective was to verify critical hardware to be used on the MOVE CubeSat in a space environment. The items to be verified were multiple micro switches from different manufacturers and a solar panel deployment mechanism developed at TUM. The deployment mechanism is triggered by a melt wire. During launch, the switches are depressed by a plate which is retracted once the rocket is near its apogee. This simulates the satellite’s ejection from the launch vehicle. The verification sequence was executed as planned during the 10-min flight and the experiment was safely recovered. The acquired data suggests that the deployment mechanism can be used as is and COTS of verified quality micro switches will survive LEOP conditions and are suitable for further testing, addressing their long-term reliability.
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Olthoff, C., Purschke, R., Winklmeier, R., Czech, M. (2010). Testing of Critical Pico-Satellite Systems on the Sounding Rocket Rexus-4. In: Sandau, R., Roeser, HP., Valenzuela, A. (eds) Small Satellite Missions for Earth Observation. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03501-2_24
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03501-2_24
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