• 16U
• Cubesat
• IOD
• IOV
• Space Systems

Small satellite missions represent a relatively nascent field compared to senior huge satellites. They present a favorable option due to their cost-effectiveness throughout development and deployment. This led to a new field in Space Engineering focusing on developing satellite technologies in new miniaturized sizes to be adequate for small satellites. With this vision, the University of Pisa participated in ASI’s “Future Missioni per Cubesats” program to design and develop a 16U Cubesat “EXCITE” aiming to demonstrate and verify five new small satellite technologies in orbit.
16U Cubesat missions are quite modern type of missions that are more complex than older smaller Cubesat missions while they maintain the constraint of small sized components compared to bigger satellites. This mission also contains five new technologies to be demonstrated in space for the first-time which incorporates an additional factor of complexity to the mission due to the interactions and effects that these experiments can cause to each other to other components in the bus platform.
This study focuses on comprehensive Management and planning of the mission, its objectives, constraints and development drivers throughout pre-phase A to reach a defined mission profile, task responsibilities, expected milestones and deliverables, as well as define a prospective architecture of the cube satellite.
An Interface Control Document is developed for each of the payload experiments to assess their interference with the bus system and with the other experiments and to define their technical requirements and effects with respect to structure, power, attitude, heat, and Electromagnetic isolation.