Aerodynamic Attitude and Orbit Control Capabilities of the ΔDSAT Cubesat

"Delta"Dsat is a 2 unit CubeSat that will be part of the QB50 mission. "Delta"Dsat has the main objective to study rarefied gas dynamics. The payload that enables this study consists of 4 steerable aerodynamic surfaces with an area of 408 cm2 each. The rotation of these aerodynamic surfaces can be performed independently and it allows these aerodynamic surfaces to change their orientation with respect to the CubeSat body. By changing the orientation of these 4 surfaces "Delta"Dsat has the capability to change the amount of drag and lift that it is creating and therefore the ability to create aerodynamic torques in any direction (pitch, roll and yaw). These capabilities will be used to perform demonstrations of the use of aerodynamics to actively control the attitude and the orbit of the CubeSat. "Delta"Dsat will demonstrate aerostable attitude control and re-entry point targeting by drag control. Using realistic simulations it is shown that "Delta"Dsat aerostability should be able to keep the CubeSat aligned with the flow with an error less than 3. Also, simulations show that the predicted re-entry ellipse is small enough when targeting Cranfield University so that some of the UK ground stations should be able to pick the "Delta"Dsat during the last stages of its decay and hence confirm the validity of the technique.