The CANYVAL-C (CubeSat Astronomy by NASA and Yonsei using a virtual telescope alignment for coronagraph) is a space science demonstration mission that involves taking several images of the solar corona with two CubeSats—1U CubeSat (Timon) and 2U CubeSat (Pumbaa)—in formation flying. In this study, we developed and evaluated structural and thermal designs of the CubeSats Timon and Pumbaa through finite element analyses, considering the nonlinearity effects of the nylon wire of the deployable solar panels installed in Pumbaa. On-orbit thermal analyses were performed with an accurate analytical model for a visible camera on Timon and a micro propulsion system on Pumbaa, which has a narrow operating temperature range. Finally, the analytical models were correlated for enhancing the reliability of the numerical analysis. The test results indicated that the CubeSats are structurally safe with respect to the launch environment and can activate each component under the space thermal environment. The natural frequency of the nylon wire for the deployable solar panels was found to increase significantly as the wire was tightened strongly. The conditions of the thermal vacuum and cycling testing were implemented in the thermal analytical model, which reduced the differences between the analysis and testing.

In this study, we describe an analytical process for designing a low Earth orbit constellation for discontinuous regional coverage, to be used for a surveillance and reconnaissance space mission. The objective of this study was to configure a satellite constellation that targeted multiple areas near the Korean Peninsula. The constellation design forms part of a discontinuous regional coverage problem with a minimum revisit time. We first introduced an optimal inclination search algorithm to calculate the orbital inclination that maximizes the geometrical coverage of single or multiple ground targets. The common ground track (CGT) constellation pattern with a repeating period of one nodal day was then used to construct the rest of the orbital elements of the constellation. Combining these results, we present an analytical design process that users can directly apply to their own situation. For Seoul, for example, 39.0° was determined as the optimal orbital inclination, and the maximum and average revisit times were 58.1 min and 27.9 min for a 20-satellite constellation, and 42.5 min and 19.7 min for a 30-satellite CGT constellation, respectively. This study also compares the revisit times of the proposed method with those of a traditional Walker-Delta constellation under three inclination conditions: optimal inclination, restricted inclination by launch trajectories from the Korean Peninsula, and inclination for the sun-synchronous orbit. A comparison showed that the CGT constellation had the shortest revisit times with a non-optimal inclination condition. The results of this analysis can serve as a reference for determining the appropriate constellation pattern for a given inclination condition.

This paper presents an overview of deep space orbit determination software (DSODS), as well as validation and verification results on its event prediction capabilities. DSODS was developed in the MATLAB object-oriented programming environment to support the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) mission. DSODS has three major capabilities: celestial event prediction for spacecraft, orbit determination with deep space network (DSN) tracking data, and DSN tracking data simulation. To achieve its functionality requirements, DSODS consists of four modules: orbit propagation (OP), event prediction (EP), data simulation (DS), and orbit determination (OD) modules. This paper explains the highest-level data flows between modules in event prediction, orbit determination, and tracking data simulation processes. Furthermore, to address the event prediction capability of DSODS, this paper introduces OP and EP modules. The role of the OP module is to handle time and coordinate system conversions, to propagate spacecraft trajectories, and to handle the ephemerides of spacecraft and celestial bodies. Currently, the OP module utilizes the General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT) as a third-party software component for highfidelity deep space propagation, as well as time and coordinate system conversions. The role of the EP module is to predict celestial events, including eclipses, and ground station visibilities, and this paper presents the functionality requirements of the EP module. The validation and verification results show that, for most cases, event prediction errors were less than 10 millisec when compared with flight proven mission analysis tools such as GMAT and Systems Tool Kit (STK). Thus, we conclude that DSODS is capable of predicting events for the KPLO in real mission applications.