Nanosatellites

25 III-1aCost Breakdown for the Development of Nanosatellites

Katharine Brumbaugh Gamble

Washington, DC, USA

25.1 Introduction

Satellites have been built and launched for over 60 years. Initially, satellites were small with simple payloads. Over time these payloads became bigger, necessitating larger, more complex, and expensive spacecraft. In the past decade, small satellites have re-emerged as a lower-cost alternative space platform. There are four classifications, summarized in Table 25.1, of small satellites, which are gaining in popularity. Those spacecraft having a mass between 0.1 and 1 kg are considered “picosatellites,” while those with masses between 1 and 10 kg are called “nanosatellites.” Larger classes of spacecraft include “microsatellites” and “minisatellites,” having masses between 10 and 100 kg and larger than 100 kg, respectively.

California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) has established a standard launching mechanism for nanosatellites called the Poly-Picosatellite Orbital Deployer (P-POD). The P-POD is frequently flown as a secondary payload on unmanned launch vehicles, making it easier for small satellites, which use the system to obtain launches. In order to use the P-POD, the spacecraft must be in the shape of 10 cm cubes—called CubeSats. One CubeSat is called a 1-unit (1U) cube. Multiple CubeSats may be combined to form various size configurations of units, such as 1U, 2U, and 3U. The P-POD and CubeSat standard was first demonstrated in June ...