The mission objective of STEP Cube Lab. (Cube Laboratory for Space Technology Experimental Project) classified as a pico-class satellite is to verify the technical effectiveness of payloads such as variable emittance radiator, SMA washer, oscillating heat pipe and MEMS based solid propellant thruster researched at domestic universities. In addition, the MEMS concentrating photovoltaic power system and the non-explosive holding and separation mechanism with the advantages of high constraint force and low shock level will be developed as the primary payloads for on-orbit verification. In this study, the feasibility of the mission actualization has been confirmed by the preliminary system design.
The STEP Cube Lab. classified as a pico-class satellite has been successfully developed as a flight model(FM) to be launched in 2015. Its mission objective is to perform the on-orbit verification of fundamental space core-technologies. In this study, a thermal design concept based on the passive method to achieve the mission objective is introduced. The effectiveness of the thermal design and performance of the satellite has been verified through the acceptance level thermal vacuum test. In addition, to improve the reliability of thermal mathematical model, correlation was performed using the results of thermal balance test. This paper describes a series of process for the thermal vacuum test on the STEP Cube Lab. FM.
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