Assessment of earth remote sensing microsatellite power subsystem sapability during detumbling and nominal modes

• Main Authors: Zahran, Mohamed, Okasha, Mohamed Elsayed Aly Abd Elaziz, Ivanova, Galina A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Korean Institute of Power Electronics 2006
• Subjects: TA168 Systems engineering; TA329 Engineering mathematics. Engineering analysis; TA349 Mechanics of engineering. Applied mechanics
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/38710/1/JPE_6-1-3.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/38710/; http://review.jpe.or.kr/On_line/admin/paper/files/JPE%206-1-3.pdf

The Electric Power Subsystem (EPS) is one of the most critical systems on any satellite because nearly every subsystem requires power. This makes the choice of power systems the most important task facing satellite designers. The main purpose of the Satellite EPS is to provide continuous, regulated and conditioned power to all the satellite subsystems. It has to withstand radiation, thermal cycling and vacuums in hostile space environments, as well as subsystem degradation over time. The EPS power characteristics are determined by both the parameters of the system itself and by the satellite orbit. After satellite separation from the launch vehicle (LV) to its orbit, in almost all situations, the satellite subsystems (attitude determination and control, communication and onboard computer and data handling (OBC&DH)), take their needed power from a storage battery (SB) and solar arrays (SA) besides the consumed power in the EPS management device. At this point (separation point, detumbling mode), the satellite’s angular motion is high and the orientation of the solar arrays, with respect to the Sun, will change in a non-uniform way, so the amount of power generated by the solar arrays will be affected. The objective of this research is to select satellite EPS component types, to estimate solar array illumination parameters and to determine the efficiency of solar arrays during both detumbling and normal operation modes.