In 8 Years From Design to Launch: Objectives, Challenges and Risk Mitigation of the Educational Student CubeSat Project SOURCE

In 8 Years From Design to Launch: Objectives, Challenges and Risk Mitigation of the Educational Student CubeSat Project SOURCE

Salt Palace Convention Center, Salt Lake City, UT

The Stuttgart Operated University Research CubeSat for Evaluation and Education (SOURCE) project is a 3U+ CubeSat developed in collaboration between the Small Satellite Student Society at the University of Stuttgart (KSat e.V.) and the University of Stuttgart’s Institute of Space Systems. This educational satellite mission is designed to provide students with hands-on experience in all phases of satellite development, from the initial concept to the final mission operations. SOURCE’s development began in 2018 and has been supported by ESA’s Fly Your Satellite! program since 2020. Over the past seven years, more than 500 students have had the opportunity to work on the project, developing and testing both hardware and software. The majority of the hardware is developed in-house by undergraduate and graduate students, overseen by PhD candidates / associate researchers from the University of Stuttgart. All qualification and acceptance testing, derived from the European Cooperation for Space Standardization (ECSS), is performed by students as well. To mitigate risks, an extensive full-functional testing campaign on the flat-sat model will be conducted before integration of the flight model. In December 2024, SOURCE passed the Manufacturing Readiness Review, which concludes the qualification phase and allows the beginning of manufacturing of the Flight Hardware. In accordance with the ECSS, system, mission and environmental testing of the assembled flight model are to follow, with the launch to a 500 km SSO planned for Q2 2026. The mission operation is divided into two phases: the payload operation above 200 km and the re-entry phase below 200 km. During the first phase, a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) camera will be used for meteor observation and star and horizon tracking. A second COTS camera will take color images of the Earth for public relation purposes. Three additional payloads from SOURCE’s external partners will be operated above 200 km: The German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Bremen is characterizing new thin-film solar arrays. A 3D-printed carbon fiber multifunctional sandwich structure is being tested by the DLR Stuttgart in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA) and the University of Stuttgart. Furthermore, Airbus Defence and Space is profiling a smart heater for spacecraft applications. During this phase of the mission, S-Band frequencies will be used for commanding, telemetry and payload data. For the re-entry phase below 200km, sensor arrays are distributed along the surface of SOURCE. These analyze pressure, heat flux and temperature at different points on the satellite. Two additional sensors placed in the front and back measure the atmosphere’s atomic oxygen concentration. SOURCE is de-orbited passively by increased atmospheric drag at lower altitudes to naturally end its mission. To ensure continuous data collection during the early re-entry phase, SOURCE employs the IRIDIUM inter-satellite network. This paper details the objectives of the SOURCE mission, emphasizing the educational aspects of the project and focusing on risk mitigation and test strategy for a student build Flight Model. Moreover, it provides a series of lessons learned from the development of the satellite.