Cubesat Tether Deploy
- internal dimensions minus posts and wall thickness
- 1U = 100 × 100 × 99.50 mm, 1.33 kg mass
- 1.5U = 100 x 100 x 156.25 mm, 2.00 kg mass
- 2U = 100 x 100 x 213.00 mm, 2.66 kg mass
- 3U = 100 x 100 x 326.50 mm, 4.00 kg mass
- corner posts are 8.5 x 8.5 mm, and extend 7 mm above and below ends. Assume 1 mm walls. The largest rectangular cavity within a 2U is 83x x 98y x 211z .
Can we roll a 160 mm thinsat to fit a 2U ? Better to assume stiff.
Assume double thickess thinsats - 0.04 g/cm², or 2 g/cm² per 50 thinsats. Assume thinsats, plus center pivot, are 0.4 mm thick. 50 thinsats are 20 mm thick. We could make a stack of thinsats 116 mm on one side - a bit more with curvature - and fit:
Assume 50 thinsats are spaced 1 meter apart on the kevlar cable, and it must support 10 gees during deployment. Assume 500 KYuri design strength. 100 m/s² x 50 m x M(kg) is the force, divided by 500 KYuri, is the scaling factor of thinsat to kevlar: 0.01. Trivial!
Instead, assume we are launching from a tether on a spinning rocket body.
1U |
116 x 97 mm |
112 cm² |
224 g |
1.5U |
116 x 154 mm |
178 cm² |
356 g |
2U |
116 x 211 mm |
245 cm² |
490 g |
Extended table of contents for Beletsky/Levin 1983 http://electrodynamictechnologies.com/PDF/Contents1.pdf