Vibration analysis of the CubeSat SPORT boom’s through a flexible multi- body model

Resumo

SPORT (Scintillation Prediction Observation Research Task) is a 6U CubeSat being developed in a part-
nership among NASA, Aeronautics Institute of Technology (ITA), National Institute for Space Research (INPE)

and several U.S. universities, with its launch planned for 2021. SPORT’s scientific mission is the study of the

pre-bubble conditions in space weather, which induce the formation of plasma bubbles; hence it has several instru-
ments, with five of them positioned in four booms around the satellite. The boom’s opening occurs through spring

mechanisms soon after its ejection from the International Space Station (ISS). These same springs keep the boom’s
final position perpendicular to the satellite body since there are no mechanisms to lock the booms in place. Thus,
periodic calibration maneuvers performed by the SPORT may induce vibration in both rigid and flexible modes of
these booms, which can lead to interferences in the control system. These interferences can reduce the pointing
accuracy of the satellite or even make the control system unstable, which supports the need to analyze them. This
paper presents the modeling of the SPORT as a rigid body and its mechanisms as flexible bodies using a multibody
approach, which allows simulating the boom’s behavior in the space environment.