AquaGSat – A Sun Pointing Picosatellite Powered by a Regenerative Fuel Cell

Introduction A unique opportunity of low-cost access to space in is being offered to many educational institutions and commercial interests around the world. The Cubesat program offers launch opportunities for pico-satellites (<1kg) which can be built for a reachable price range, thus extended the access to space out further into the publics grasp. The current cubesat projects offer up to 200 grams of payload to be for small lowearth-orbit (LEO) experiments. Along with the increasing trend in small spacecraft, alternate forms of power are being developed. Such as the unitized regenerative fuel cell (URFC). A URFC extracts the energy from the formation of H2O and utilizes it as power. The URFC has the ability to then reverse the process inputting the power necessary to break down the H2O into H2 and O2 and storing the products. Thus, applied to space applications URFC serves as a nonhazards, cheap, and infinitely renewable energy source. AquaGSat will utilize this access to lowearth-orbit (LEO) by providing a platform for a small URFC and other experiments of similar power needs. This report details the preliminary design of AquaGSat “Water EnerGy” Satellite. The AquaGSat was designed with a modular vision of being able to implement similar experimental payloads that share power and attitude control requirements. Design drivers for AquaGSat are: innovation, maximize energy per volume ratio, utilization of existing technology, and simplicity. The basic shape and composition of the external shell of the spacecraft is provided by the P-POD Payload Planners Guide. P-POD will eject its cubesat load at a certain location in orbit (600 km to 800 km). Once safely away the cubesats will activate themselves and begin their mission. To accomplish AquaGSat’s mission, it is a threeaxis stabilized sun-pointing satellite, because of its large power needs. The sections that follow consider the design and analysis that were performed. Including URFC, Mission Design, P-POD requirements, Thermal, Vibration and Structural Analysis, and Attitude Determination and Control Model and Simulation results, Power and Communications subsystems.