Austrian’s CubeSat PEGASUS: Development and Testing
C. Scharlemann1, G. Janisch2, M. Taraba3
1 University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt Ltd., Austria
2 Spaceteam, TU Vienna
3 Space Tech Group
Abstract
The PEGASUS CubeSat project is a cooperation between Austrian entities, mostly consisting of students and university staff. PEGASUS itself is part of the QB50 project which has the goal to launch up to 50 CubeSats. One of the goals of the PEGASUS project was to develop the majority of the satellite by the team itself rather than relying on procured parts. This allowed the team to implement and test new concepts instead of being forced to comply with standards which were conceived as ineffective or disadvantageous.
This objective and the very small budget of PEGASUS did not allow the use of space rated or radiation hardened electronic parts or subsystems. However, a review of the impact of space radiation on CubeSats or, similar the use of not-space rated parts, has shown only little impact for CubeSat in LEO. However, considering that most CubeSat teams have faced the same situation and that most (short term) failures are not directly related to this fact, the PEGASUS team felt significantly confident with their design.
In the following the design of PEGASUS will be provided and how space environmental effects have impacted its design.