IonSat Project

IONSAT-DOC-ORB-SEL
17/01/2022

Orbit Selection for IonSat mission

1. Introduction
The objective of this document is to justify the Orbit for the IonSat mission.

There are two possible orbits to be considered for the deployment of the satellite:

a) ISS orbit: The orbit altitude is not fixed, but the average altitude is approximately 400 km, its
eccentricity is very low (0.0003), negligible in practice, and the inclination of the ISS orbit is
51.6°.
b) SSO orbit: A common deployment orbit is the SSO at 600 km, it has a high inclination, around
98°, and its eccentricity is also near-zero

The satellite will be deployed in one of these orbits, after commissioning it will start a phase of
descent, until it reaches an altitude where it can perform its mission. The following sub-sections
describe the mission plan according to the deployment orbit.

1.1 Deployment from the ISS

In this case the following conditions apply:

a) Deployment from the ISS: The satellite is deployed from the ISS at 400 km altitude,
b) Commissioning ~ 30 days
c) Descent to mission altitude
- The satellite is in “Aero-braking” pointing mode: the side of the satellite with the maximum
surface is pointing in the velocity of direction to increase the atmospheric drag.
- The satellite doesn’t use its propulsion subsystem to perform this descent.
- This phase is finished when the satellite reaches and altitude of 300km
d) Station Keeping
- The satellite acquires the “Sun-aero” pointing mode.
- The thruster is activated with a certain duty cycle, the duration of the thrust is fixed to 50
minutes, but the charging time between two consecutive thrusts can be adjusted.
- The station keeping begins when the satellite reaches 300km, the charge time at this
altitude is 750 minutes, the satellite will execute the thrust maneuvers to maintain this
altitude during 45 days with the cyclic thruster firing.
- After that period of time, the next target altitude is 290km, the charge time is 600 minutes,
the satellite will try to maintain this altitude during 45 days with the cyclic thruster firing.
- The final target altitude is 280km, which is expected to be the lowest altitude that the
satellite can perform station keeping. The charging time is 475 minutes. The satellite will try
to keep this altitude during 4 months.
e) End of mission: The satellite will perform the end-of-life procedures before turning off and
naturally re-entering the atmosphere.

The simulation of this mission scenario can be performed using GMAT, to present this mission plan,
it is assumed that there are not restrictions in power generation. In Figure 1 it can be seen the plot
of the variation of the altitude and the eccentricity. The “altitude” is the distance to the plane
tangent to the surface of the specified celestial body at the sub-satellite point. GMAT assumes the
body is an ellipsoid.

1
 IonSat Project
IONSAT-DOC-ORB-SEL
17/01/2022

a = 6771 km
e = 0.0003
i = 51.6°
Ω (RAAN) = 45°
ω = 0°
ν (True Anomaly) = 54°

Figure 1. Satellite altitude (top) and eccentricity (bottom) evolution after deployment from the ISS orbit.

2
 IonSat Project
IONSAT-DOC-ORB-SEL
17/01/2022

1.2 Deployment from a SSO

In this case the following conditions apply:

a) Deployment from an SSO: The satellite is deployed at 600 km altitude.

b) Commissioning ~ 30 days.
c) Powered descent:
- The satellite acquires the “Retrograde Propulsion” pointing mode.
- The thruster is activated with a certain duty cycle, the duration of the thrust is fixed to 50
minutes, but the charging time between two consecutive thrusts can be adjusted.
- The powered descent begins at the end of commissioning, the charge time between two
consecutive thrusts changes between 420 minutes and 1000 minutes depending on the
power generation at the moment, when there is more available power, the charging time is
shorter, therefore the duty cycle of thruster firing is higher. This variable duty cycle strategy
is used to reduce the descent time.
- The satellite continues the powered descent until it reaches an altitude of 400 km, which is
the end of this phase.
d) Aero-braking Descent to mission altitude, similar as in the previous case:
- The satellite changes its attitude to “Aero-braking” pointing mode.
- The satellite doesn’t use its propulsion system to perform this maneuver.
- This phase is finished when the satellite reaches and altitude of 300km.
e) Station Keeping: Same as the deployment from the ISS
f) End of mission: The satellite will perform the end-of-life procedures before turning off and
naturally re-entering the atmosphere.

The simulation of this mission scenario is also performed using GMAT, assuming there are no
limitations in power generation, in Figure 2 it can be seen the plot of the variation of the altitude and
the eccentricity. The parameters for deployment orbit in the simulation are the following:

a = 6971 km
e = 0.001
i = 98.2°
Ω = 134.78°
ω = 0°
ν = 54°

3
 IonSat Project
IONSAT-DOC-ORB-SEL
17/01/2022

Figure 2. Satellite altitude (top) and eccentricity (bottom) evolution after deployment from an SSO orbit

1.3 Descent time difference

The main difference in the mission plan between the two orbits is that from an initial SSO orbit there
is an additional phase of “powered descent” where the thruster will fire, adapting its duty cycle
according to the collected power of the satellite.

4
 IonSat Project
IONSAT-DOC-ORB-SEL
17/01/2022

The duration of the mission phases is seen in Table 1. The total mission duration is the sum of the
duration of every mission phase in case of the deployment from the SSO. In case of deployment
from the ISS, the powered descent phase will not be part of the mission.

This phase of powered descent is the longest one during the whole mission, it lasts between 240 and
300 days depending on the initial conditions. It is comparable to the duration of all the other phases
combined, therefore, it could be said that deploying from an altitude of 600 km, the mission is
roughly doubled in duration.

Mission phase Duration [days]

Deployment and Commissioning 30
Powered descent 240 to 300
Aero braking descent 90 to 150
Station keeping level 1 (300 km) 45 to 60
Station keeping level 2 (290 km) 45 to 60
Station keeping level 3 (280 km) 60 to 120 days
Table 1. Approximate duration of mission operational phases

2. Detail of the different constraints

To select the deployment orbit, it is necessary to compare both possible deployment orbits and
consider the following constraints to compare both orbits:

a) Power
b) Temperature ranges
c) Link budget
d) Descent time difference
e) Propellant consumption
f) Lifetime of components
g) Cost of operations
h) Cost of launch

1.4 Power generation

This section details the analysis of the power generation and consumption according to the
deployment orbit.

1.1.1 Relationship between the beta and the power generated

The average power generated with the nominal attitude (“sun-aero”) depends on the orbit altitude,
but most importantly on the β angle of the orbit (the angle between the orbital plane and the
direction of the sun), as the Figure 3 shows.

5
 IonSat Project
IONSAT-DOC-ORB-SEL
17/01/2022

Figure 3. Generated average power as a function of the beta angle for different altitudes.

From now on, the 300 km altitude case is considered to be the reference scenario. Table 2 shows
some reference values of the generated average power (per orbit):

β Power generated Power generated

[degrees 300 km [W] 600 km [W]
]
30 20.2 21.4
35 21.4 22.9
40 22.7 24.4
50 25.6 28.1
55 27.3 30.5
Table 2. Some values of the power generation at two altitudes related to the beta angle.

1.1.2 Variation of beta angle according to different orbits

To have an idea of the impact of the inclination, two orbits are considered. For this analysis the
propagation of these orbits only considers the J2 effect.

The plots in Figure 4 show the variation of the beta (β) angle during one year, for two different
orbits, the upper one is for the ISS inclination, the second one is for an inclination of 98°, both plots
have different starting points, defined by the Mean Local Time of Ascending Node (MLTAN). It is
evident that the variation of the beta angle for mid-inclinations, such as the one of the ISS (51.6°),
shows a highly oscillatory behavior, quite distinctly from the variation of an orbit for the high
inclination case.

6
 IonSat Project
IONSAT-DOC-ORB-SEL
17/01/2022

Figure 4. Evolution of the beta angle, at a fixed altitude of 300km. Mid inclination: 51° (left), high inclination: 98° (right).

1.1.3 Duty cycle of the thruster and power consumption

The current orbital strategy considers a continuous thrust during 50 minutes, this does not include
the heating period for the thruster, where the thruster will also be consuming power. The waiting
time between two consecutive thrust is going to be variable, therefore the duty cycle (the time that
the thruster is active during a cycle) also will be changing. This waiting time is the time necessary to
recharge the batteries to execute another thrust, its range is from 5.5 hours (333 min) to 12.5 hours
(750 min).

t thrust
Thruster Duty cycle=
t thrust +t heat +t charge
The required duty cycle to compensate the atmospheric drag was estimated, by other orbit analysis
in previous years, this relation can be seen in Table 3.

Altitude [km] Thruster Duty Thrust time Time between

cycle required [s] two firings [s]
300 6.66 % 3000 45000
290 8.33 % 3000 36000
280 10.5 % 3000 28500
270 13.33% 3000 22500
Table 3. Required Thruster duty cycle for maintaining a constant altitude.

Assuming that the power consumption of the thruster is 50 W during the thrust and during the
heating, while during charge times it only consumes 0.32 W in stand-by mode, and the efficiency of
power conversion (η conv) is 90%, the average power consumption by cycle would be:

50 W ꞏ Duty cycle+0.32 W ∗(1−Duty cycle)

Power Thruster ( Duty cycle )=
ηconv

The following plots in Figure 5 depict these relationships:

Figure 5. Thruster duty cycle as a function of time (left) and Average power consumption by orbit as function of the duty
cycle (right).

In concordance with the updated power budget, which has an average nominal power consumption
of 15.84 W, and during communications (3% duty cycle) of 28.19 W. The power required by the bus
is calculated by the following equation:

Power requiredbus =Power Thruster + ( 1−0.03 ) ꞏ Power nominal +0.03 ꞏ Power com

7
 IonSat Project
IONSAT-DOC-ORB-SEL
17/01/2022

Figure 6. Power consumption of the platform as a function of the Duty Cycle of the Thruster.

Figure 6 shows the power consumption as a function of the duty cycle of the thruster.

It is possible to extrapolate the values of power vs duty cycle, to the ones of the beta angle and the
power generated, as seen in Figure 7, which shows what is the minimum beta angle that ensures a
certain power generation:

Figure 7. Beta angle required to generate power for the Thruster duty cycle.

It can be seen that for low duty cycles, the minimum beta angle to ensure enough power generation
for the platform is around 35°, in the high-end of duty cycle, a power generation of more than 26 W
is required, this is achieved only by beta angles that are above 52°.

When the orbit has lower values of beta angles, the duty cycle has to be reduced, otherwise there
will be not enough power to recharge the batteries.

1.1.4 Comparison of the power generated in two orbit inclinations

In the first case, when the satellite is deployed from the ISS orbit (51.6° inclination), the beta angle
during the mission can be seen in Figure 8.

8
 IonSat Project
IONSAT-DOC-ORB-SEL
17/01/2022

Figure 8. Evolution of the beta angle during the mission at 51.6° of inclination.

The power generated by the solar panels will be variable during the whole mission lifetime, it
changes as the beta angle of the orbit changes. For simplicity, it will be assumed that during the
whole mission, the satellite has the “sun-aero” pointing during all the phases. Therefore, the power
generation is going to be variable.

Figure 9. Power generated (left) and Max. Thruster Duty cycle allowed (right) after deployment from the ISS.

From the Figure 9, it is possible to see that during some weeks of the year, the energy is not enough
for the thruster to be activated at any duty cycle, for example, at day 150 when the station keeping
around 300 km should be performed, the lack of any propulsion maneuvers would make the satellite
reduce the altitude of its orbit and compromise the mission. Note that the previous simulation
results in Section 1.1, were done assuming all the available power for the propulsion is provided by

9
 IonSat Project
IONSAT-DOC-ORB-SEL
17/01/2022

the platform, it is also important to consider that the starting point of the beta angle depends on the
deployment date, but the behavior of the beta angle variation during the year is similar for different
LTAN at the moment of deployment. In all cases, the mission plan presented in Section 1.1 is hardly
achievable, the gaps with low power generation impede the continuous station keeping for long
periods of time.

In the case of the deployment from the SSO, the variation of the beta angle depends more strongly
on the initial LTAN, in the example shown hereafter, the LTAN is set to be 15:00 Hs, Figure 10. The
variation of the LTAN will have a greater impact on the evolution of the beta angle, as seen in section
2.1.2. One example: an initial LTAN of 3pm is beneficial in term of power generation, because the
beta angle keeps increasing and the duty cycle for the thruster is above a fixed value during long and
continuous periods of time, unlike the same evolution when the satellite is deployed from the ISS.

Figure 10. Evolution of the beta angle during the mission at 98° of inclination.

Figure 11. Power generated (left) and Max. Thruster Duty cycle allowed (right) after deployment from a SSO.

In these cases, because the duty cycle allowed during most of the mission is above 13%, then the
station keeping strategy can be executed without much problem. This is clearly visible in Figure 11.

1.1.5 Considering power generation limitations from ISS deployment

In a more realistic simulation, it is considered the case where the thruster is activated according to
the available power, in other words: if the power consumption of the required duty cycle to
maintain the altitude exceeds the generated power, only the available power will be used.

Then, the evolution of the altitude in the simulation looks like in Figure 12, note that the initial
altitude for the activation of the thruster has to be around 320km, if the initial altitude is 300km, the

10
 IonSat Project
IONSAT-DOC-ORB-SEL
17/01/2022

satellite quickly loses altitude and cannot compensate the lost altitude with the lower duty cycles of
the thruster, reentering Earth in a shorter period of time.

Figure 12. Altitude of the satellite (top) with the power generation constraints of ISS inclination, beta angle evolution
(bottom).

The altitude cannot be kept constant when the beta angles have smaller values, therefore the orbit
control strategy of keeping the altitude at different fixed altitudes (300km, 290km, 280km) cannot
be met in these circumstances, as seen in Figure 12.

The mission objective needs to be redefined if this inclination is chosen, instead of keeping a fixed
value of semimajor axis for the altitude, the objective should be about avoiding the reentry of the
satellite or avoiding the satellite to reach altitudes where it is not controllable.

1.5 Temperature ranges

With high β angles, at altitudes of 300 km, there is no eclipse, therefore, the platform has no time to
cool off, this affects especially two components:

 The solar array loses efficiency with temperature, power generated is calculated with
nominal temperature of 28°C.
 The batteries cannot be recharged when temperature exceeds 48 °C.

The range of temperatures for high values of the β angle (simulations gives a result of around 72 °C),
is that these components can reach 60 to 80 °C.

With lower values of the β angle (close to zero degrees), the range of temperatures is limited to
around 35 °C. Some heat power will be necessary to heat the batteries that go as low as -5 °C.

But, generally speaking, both inclinations offer comparable worst-case scenarios in the thermal
analysis of the platform, the ISS inclination produces the variation in the beta angle, but during some
days of the year the beta angle can be as large as ±72°, where the satellite does not get any eclipse,

11
 IonSat Project
IONSAT-DOC-ORB-SEL
17/01/2022

this is equivalent to the SSO high inclination angle, therefore the hot-case scenario for thermal
analysis is similar.

1.6 Link Budget

The link budget is calculated and shows that at the altitude of 300km, the data rate is optimal and
with good margins. When the altitude is increased, the margin is reduced, therefore, the data rate
might need to be limited, this would correspond to the case when the satellite is deployed at 600km.
Latest updates in the calculations show that for UHF the margins remain within acceptable margins.

In the case of S band, the margins are going down, but the communication would still be possible at
the stated data rates. Table 4 summarizes the margins for the different cases.

Band Link Altitude Min. Data rate Eb/N0 Eb/N0 Margin Margin
[km] Elevation [kb/s] nominal worst nominal worst
[°] (dB) (dB) [dB] [dB]
UHF Uplink 300 5 9.6 49.0 48.1 38.7 37.8
Uplink 600 5 9.6 45.2 44.3 34.9 34.0
Downlin 300 5 9.6 26.9 26.1 16.6 15.8
k
Downlin 600 5 9.6 23.0 22.3 12.7 12.0
k
S band Uplink 300 5 250 28.5 27.4 18.9 17.8
Uplink 600 5 250 24.7 23.6 15.1 14
Downlin 300 5 250 20.5 19.8 10.9 9.7
k
Downlin 600 5 250 15.2 11 5.6 4.3
k
Table 4. Link Budget Margins

It is seen that the margins for the required data rate are positive and remain large for the different
altitudes up to 600km, therefore, deploying from the ISS or the SSO would not make significant
differences regarding the communications link.

1.7 Access Times

The access times for the two orbits at different altitudes were calculated, the results are shown in
Table 5:

Parameter Inclination 1 Inclination 1 Inclination 2 Inclination 2

Inclination [°] 51.6 51.6 98.2 98.2
Altitude [km] 300 600 300 600
Min. Elevation [°] 5 5 5 5
Location Palaiseau Palaiseau Palaiseau Palaiseau
Mean pass duration [min] 6.1 9.7 5.2 8.2
Coverage time per day [min] 33.4 59 19.41 43.2
Use time during 75 75 75 75
coverage[%]
Available coverage time per 25 44.2 14.5 32.4
day
Table 5. Comparison of access times for both orbits

12
 IonSat Project
IONSAT-DOC-ORB-SEL
17/01/2022

The access time from the ground station is diminished around 30% when the orbit is in the higher
inclination, but the coverage time per day is still acceptable with this decrease.

1.8 Propellant Consumption

As shown in previous sections, the case for deployment from an SSO at 600km includes an additional
phase of powered descent, this means extra propellant is required compared to the previous case.
Indeed, if the thruster has an I SP = 1000 s, and the initial propellant mass is 240 g (for the 1U sized
thruster), the powered descent consumption is around 115 g. This is more than the expected
propellant consumption during the station keeping at 300 km or below, which is around 85 g to 90 g.

This means that starting from an SSO orbit at 600km would consume most of the original propellant
of 240g of propellant, leaving little margin for more maneuvers, unless the 1.5U thruster is used,
which has an initial propellant mass of 480g.

Figure 13 shows the propellant consumption nominal values, considering the 1U sized thruster with
initial propellant mass of 240g; in the case of a high inclination orbit the remaining propellent is
small and is within the margin of error of propellant consumption.

Figure 13. Propellant consumption (1U thruster): Deployment from ISS orbit (top), Deployment from an SSO (bottom).

1.9 Components lifetime

The COTS of components are designed with different lifetimes in mind. In the case of the
components provided by Gomspace: Transceiver UHF & Power System, the lifetime is up to 5 years.
For the ADCS components provided by CubeSpace, the lifetime limitation is given by the radiation
dose, in most of these components can tolerate 20 to 24 krad, while the providers of other
components such as Syrlinks, gives a lifetime >2 years.

Having said this, some particular components such as reaction wheels, are prone to have anomalies
due to events in the space weather such as geomagnetic storms [1], so the longer the mission, the

13
 IonSat Project
IONSAT-DOC-ORB-SEL
17/01/2022

more likelihood of some partial or total failure of these components. Other components like solar
arrays and batteries will be degraded the longer the duration of the mission, however, this
degradation is expected to be around 2% to 5% /year, this degradation is included in the margins for
the power budgets.

Nanosats/cubesats up to 10kg have an average operational life expectancy of 1.1 year [2], therefore,
extending it to two years, as would be the case from deploying it from an SSO orbit at 600km, means
increasing the risk and complexity of the mission.

1.10 Cost of operations

Estimating the cost of operations of a CubeSat mission can be challenging, there are three major
problems with current cost and risk models that limit their direct application to estimating the costs
of nanosatellite/CubeSat missions. They are the absence of reliable learning curve factors, small
satellite (<20 kg) costing tools and operations cost [3]. A commonly used model to estimate the
operations cost is a function of lifetime and spacecraft cost as obtained from the NASA Spacecraft
Operations Cost model [4] [5], which takes the cost of operations as a fraction of the cost of the
platform and multiplies it by the lifetime of the operation.

To estimate the cost of mission operations after launch for both cases is basically to estimate the
total cost and compare the effect of the phase of powered descent with the total operations cost.
The main cost components are the following:

- Human Resources to operate the satellite: A team has to perform the operations during all
phases, the initial phase being the commissioning will require the support of people who
had been working on the satellite on previous phases, after the commissioning the team will
consist of students who will be trained in the operations for this task, however, in case of
anomalies during flight, expertise in the Flight dynamics/software is required, therefore at
least one professional would be needed during the operations mission, this implies that the
IonSat requires at least one full time engineer.
- Deployment of ground stations: Whether modifications in the ground stations need to be
implemented, or new ground stations need to be installed, the cost would be the same
independently of the deployment orbit.
- Maintenance and operations: Presumably the ground station located at the Ecole
Polytechnique will be operated at minimum cost, however, other ground stations, such as
the S band stations, will not belong to the Ecole Polytechnique. The rental service of these S
band ground stations is needed.

According to the expected duration of the mission, deploying the satellite from an SSO orbit would
mean a mission duration with double the time than deploying the satellite from the ISS orbit
(approximately 1 year).

The labor rate of the support engineer and the training of student operators from two different
years is needed when the deployment orbit is the SSO, also the access to the S band through
external ground stations would be required for a similar period of time.

Finally, the cost of operations for a CubeSat mission is expected to be between 25 k€ and 60 k€ per
year [6], this means that for a two-year mission the operations cost would be between 50 k€ and
120 k€, which is not the main contribution to the total cost budget of the mission, but it is
considerable as well.

14
 IonSat Project
IONSAT-DOC-ORB-SEL
17/01/2022

1.11 Cost of launch

Deployment services from some companies that act as launch brokers are used, summarized in
Table 6, for a deployment from the ISS, NanoRacks is considered the first option, in the case of
deploying from an SSO orbit at 550 to 600 km of altitude, there are more options and launchers. The
market is more dynamic in this case, because of the development of new Smallsat launchers,

Launcher / Broker Destination Estimated Explanation

price (k$us)
NanoRacks ISS 300 (year Includes testing, possible links with NASA,
2020) certification. Departure from ISS or
launcher
Spaceflight SSO 295 to 375 Includes integration and transport.
(year 2021)
Astreus SSO 340 to 360 The services provided depend on the
(year 2021) launcher and the integrator.
Table 6. Estimated costs of deployment.

1.12 Restrictions from the orbital launch

Deploying from the ISS has some extra restrictions in the design of the satellite:

- The mass of a 6U CubeSat has a limit of 8.4kg, but the operational Ballistic Number (BN) is
the real value that drives the requirement.
- There is an extra cost in the Commercial-Off-The-Shelf components, such as the power
system, to upgrade the components to comply with the safety requirements for ISS launch.
This does not include ISS unit acceptance testing.
- There are wiring requirements between the power sources and the electrical inhibitors.
- Specific control of hazard requirements included in systems such as propulsion, structural
analysis and several different inspection reports to ensure safety on the ISS [7].

3. Summary of all the criteria

The previous points can be summarized in Table 7:

Criteria Deploying from ISS Deploying on SSO 600 km

Power Generation Insufficient Depending on the deployment
LTAN, power generation is
sufficient
Thermal control Same worst-case scenarios Same worst-case scenarios,
longer sun exposures
Link budget No problem Little degradation, margins still
acceptable
Access time No problem Reduction of ~30% but little
impact for the mission
Propellant Budget Enough margin with the 1U Little margin with 1U thruster,
thruster 1.5U thruster OK
Lifetime of Mission less than 1-year, Mission of around two years,
components typical duration for most higher risk of anomalies or
CubeSat missions failures
Cost of operations Standard cost of CubeSat Roughly double the cost of
operations: between 25 k€ operations

15
 IonSat Project
IONSAT-DOC-ORB-SEL
17/01/2022

and 60 k€
Launch Cost Around 300 k$us Between 300 ~ 370 k$us
Extra requirements Extra Safety requirements to -
deploy from ISS
Table 7. Complete summary of all the criteria

4. Conclusions
The mission plan presented initially cannot be accomplished when there are power generation
limitations, this is the case when the deployment is done from the ISS; the alternative is to consider
a deployment from a high inclination orbit, in this case, choosing the right orbit deployment, the
power generation is no longer a problem. Besides this point, other criteria are analyzed and the
differences are not prohibitive when both deployment orbits are analyzed.

The choice is between selecting the high inclination orbit (SSO deployment), at the cost of extending
the mission to around 2 years. Or to deploy from the ISS, modifying the original mission
requirements of maneuvering at low altitudes with periods of lower than required power
generation.

Because the original mission objective of keeping a constant ‘altitude’ is interesting from the point of
view of orbit control, selecting the high-inclination orbit for the deployment is considered as the
appropriate change in the orbit definition.

References
[1] Bialke, W., & Hansell, E. (2017, September). A newly discovered branch of the fault tree explaining
systemic reaction wheel failures and anomalies. In Proceedings of the European Space Mechanisms
and Tribology Symposium (pp. 20-22).

[2] Lionnet, P., (2017, September). How much operational lifetime can we expect from cubesats?.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-much-operational-lifetime-can-we-expect-from-cubesats-lionnet/

[3] Nag, S., LeMoigne, J., & de Weck, O. (2014, March). Cost and risk analysis of small satellite
constellations for earth observation. In 2014 IEEE Aerospace Conference (pp. 1-16). IEEE.

[4] Apgar, H. (2011). Cost estimating. Space Mission Engineering: The new SMAD.

[5] Rasmussen, A. L. (1998, October). Cost models for large versus small spacecraft. In Earth
Observing Systems III (Vol. 3439, pp. 14-22). International Society for Optics and Photonics.

[6] Liddle, J. D., Holt, A. P., Jason, S. J., O’Donnell, K. A., & Stevens, E. J. (2020). Space science with
CubeSats and nanosatellites. Nature Astronomy, 4(11), 1026-1030.

[7] Deployer Interface Definition Document (IDD) (2018). NanoRacks LLC.

16