ASSESSMENT OF ENGINEERING METHODOLOGIES FOR INCREASING CUBESAT MISSION SUCCESS RATES

Abstract

In the last twenty years, CubeSat Systems have gained popularity in educational institutions and commercial industries. CubeSats have attracted educators and manufacturers due to their ability to be quickly produced and their low cost, and small sizes and masses. However, while developers can swiftly design and build their CubeSats, with a team of students from different disciplines using COTS parts, this does not guarantee that the CubeSat mission will be successful. Statistics show that mission failure is frequent. For example, out of 270 “university-class” CubeSats, 139 failed in their mission between 2002 and 2016 [1]. Statistics also show that the average failure rate of CubeSat missions is higher in academic and research institutions than in commercial or government organizations. Reasons for failure include power issues, mechanical, communications and system design issues. Some researchers have suggested that the problem lies within the design and development process itself, in that CubeSat developers mainly focus on system and component level designs, while neglecting requirements elicitation and other key system engineering activities [2]. To increase the success rate of CubeSat missions, systems engineering steps and processes need to be implemented in the development cycle. Using these processes can also help CubeSat designs and systems to become more secure, reusable, and modular. This research identifies multiple independent variables and measures their effectiveness for driving CubeSat systems’ mission success. It seeks to increase the CubeSat mission success rate by developing systems engineering methodologies and tools. It also evaluates the benefits of applying systems engineering methodologies and practices, which can be applied at different stages of CubeSat project lifecycle and across different CubeSat missions.