70th International Astronautical Congress (IAC), Washington D.C., United States, 21-25 October 2019. Copyright © 2019 by the University of Southern California. Published by the IAF, with permission and released to the IAF to publish in all forms. IAC-19-B4.IP.17 Improved CubeSat Mission Reliability Using a Rigorous Top-Down Systems-Level Approach Rahul Rughani 1 , Rebecca A. Rogers 2 , Jeremy J. Allam 3 , Sriram Narayanan 4 , Piyush Patil 5 , Kyle Clarke 6 , Marcel Lariviere 7 , Justin Du Plessis 8 , Lizvette Villafa ˜ na 9 , Denis Healy 10 , Sofia Bernstein 11 , David A. Barnhart 12 1 Department of Astronautical Engineering, University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute and Space Engineering Research Center, 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 1001, Marina del Rey, CA 90292, rrughani@isi.edu 2 Department of Astronautical Engineering, University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute and Space Engineering Research Center, 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 1001, Marina del Rey, CA 90292, rrogers@isi.edu 3 Department of Astronautical Engineering, University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute and Space Engineering Research Center, 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 1001, Marina del Rey, CA 90292, jallam@usc.edu 4 Department of Astronautical Engineering, University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute and Space Engineering Research Center, 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 1001, Marina del Rey, CA 90292, sriramn@usc.edu 5 Department of Astronautical Engineering, University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute and Space Engineering Research Center, 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 1001, Marina del Rey, CA 90292, piyushpa@usc.edu 6 Department of Astronautical Engineering, University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute and Space Engineering Research Center, 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 1001, Marina del Rey, CA 90292, kylec@usc.edu 7 Department of Astronautical Engineering, University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute and Space Engineering Research Center, 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 1001, Marina del Rey, CA 90292, mlarivie@usc.edu 8 Department of Astronautical Engineering, University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute and Space Engineering Research Center, 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 1001, Marina del Rey, CA 90292, jdupless@usc.edu 9 Department of Astronautical Engineering, University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute and Space Engineering Research Center, 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 1001, Marina del Rey, CA 90292, lvillafa@usc.edu 10 Department of Astronautical Engineering, University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute and Space Engineering Research Center, 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 1001, Marina del Rey, CA 90292, denishea@usc.edu 11 Santa Monica College, 1900 Pico Boulevard, Santa Monica, CA 90405, bernstein sofia patr@student.smc.edu 12 Department of Astronautical Engineering, University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute and Space Engineering Research Center, 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 1001, Marina del Rey, CA 90292, barnhart@isi.edu Abstract The University of Southern California’s Space Engineering Research Center (SERC) developed a 3U CubeSat, designed, built, and tested by graduate and undergraduate students utilizing an engineering ”teaching hospital” environment for hands-on learning. The 3U “Dodona” mission is to send to orbit a payload for our research sponsor, providing power and data connections, as well as data forwarding to the ground using on-board UHF telemetry system. Roughly 2U of the satellite are reserved for flight processors, power systems, and attitude control system and sensors. Generally, university CubeSat efforts are challenged by lack of time, funding and personnel turnover that end up skimping completion of a full hardware checkout and in-depth failure mode analysis prior to delivery. Statistically, 50% of CubeSat missions fail, not due to a lack of knowledge but a lack of documentation and testing generally in the critical integration and test phase. To avoid this, SERC sought to develop a rigorous top-down approach from the project start, focusing on validating requirements of the sponsor and the realistic/potential failure modes from similar missions. Using a top-down approach, we were able to update the components from a legacy bus system and setup detailed test procedures to test all subsystems, both independently and integrated, in the same manner that it would operate in flight, throughout the integration and test phase of the project. As background, the Dodona CubeSat is built on the Pumpkin COLONY I bus architecture, from one of the last remaining from the initial stock manufactured in 2008. The satellite will be placed into a 650 km altitude sun-synchronous dawn-dusk orbit in order to maximize the power collected by the sun-pointed petal array, using reaction wheels to maintain a sun-pointing orientation. For the key integration and test activities for verification the student team focused on test and validation both in the lab using simulated sensor inputs for hardware-in-the-loop testing, breakout boards for new payload board designs, and software defined radios for telemetry testing. This testing campaign, combined with a series of burn-ins, allowed our team to test the system as it would be in flight with a focus to improve the reliability of the system and ensure mission success upon reaching orbit. Keywords: Satellite, Integration, Test, University, CubeSat, Reliability 1