In Bolivia, like in most Latin American countries space projects are increasing, and this phenomenon leads to the need to train new professionals in space issues. For this reason, universities and academic centres require specialised equipment in this area. Unfortunately, this equipment has high costs (equipment such as CubeSat kit, educational satellites, satellite kit, etc.). Due to this, the design and construction of an educational and low-cost picosatellite kit with its respective signal reception equipment were necessary. The kit consists of an educational picosatellite, with a ground station, that is intended to become the perfect tool for practical training in space engineering at different levels. Potential users range from primary schools, where STEM skills development is pursued, to university engineering courses and, even, engineering companies. Additionally, this real satellite simulator offers a wide variety of educational activities without compromising cost.

Understanding the dynamics of high area-to-mass ratio (HAMR) objects in near-geostationary earth orbit (GEO) is essential for space situational awareness (SSA). This study develops a numerical propagator to model the long-term behaviour of HAMR objects, incorporating solar radiation pressure, Earth's oblateness, and third-body gravitational effects. The propagator's results were compared with Vimpel catalog ephemeris data, focusing on the orbital evolution of debris with varying area-to-mass ratios. The analysis revealed strong agreement between the propagator and ephemeris data, though some discrepancies regarding eccentricity and semi-major axis were identified. Findings show that HAMR debris in GEO can persist for decades, maintaining a mean motion near GEO while exhibiting significant variations in orbital parameters. These results enhance understanding of HAMR dynamics, offering insights for improving SSA and developing debris mitigation strategies.

Semi-analytical solutions to the optimal control problem for 3-dimensional fuel-efficient planetary landing trajectories with constant exhaust velocity and limited mass-flow rate in a drag-existing central Newtonian field are presented. The first-order optimality conditions reduce the problem to a Hamiltonian canonical system for the design and synthesis of feasible and extremal planetary entry, descent, and landing trajectories. The proposed solutions allow us to describe the state vector and Lagrange multipliers in terms of time and switching function's characteristics to determine the number and sequence of thrust arcs. These solutions can be adjusted for manoeuvres near other celestial bodies for which a central gravitational acceleration can be dominant. The paper describes new extremal trajectories, which are based on the analysis of first- and second-order optimality conditions. The results of this work can be used to support mission design analysis and synthesis of fuel-efficient trajectories.

In this paper, we assess the feasibility of the neoPASCAL thermal design by performing thermal analysis. NeoPASCAL is a network of compact solar-powered landers on Mars which aim to validate Mars General Circulation Models (GCMs) by measuring the diurnal variations in surface pressure. It is a modern revision of the original Pascal mission proposed in 1996, with each science station being ten times smaller in size and mass (a kg or less) by using miniaturised commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) electronic components and satellite platforms (i.e., Boardsat and CubeSat platforms). Despite the harsh thermal environments, the analysis shows that the Boardsat-based model can survive at ≤ ±60° latitude by using a large flexible-solar-cells-attached sail that was originally designed to attain soft landing. If successful, such a network would provide an unprecedented set of global meteorological data that can be used to investigate various meteorological phenomena including the general circulation.

In this paper, we assess the feasibility of the neoPASCAL thermal design by performing thermal analysis. NeoPASCAL is a network of compact solar-powered landers on Mars which aim to validate Mars General Circulation Models (GCMs) by measuring the diurnal variations in surface pressure. It is a modern revision of the original Pascal mission proposed in 1996, with each science station being ten times smaller in size and mass (a kg or less) by using miniaturised commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) electronic components and satellite platforms (i.e., Boardsat and CubeSat platforms). Despite the harsh thermal environments, the analysis shows that the Boardsat-based model can survive at ≤ ±60° latitude by using a large flexible-solar-cells-attached sail that was originally designed to attain soft landing. If successful, such a network would provide an unprecedented set of global meteorological data that can be used to investigate various meteorological phenomena including the general circulation.

The MBOC signal uses a modulation in which the pilot and the data signals are separated. However, these modulation methods have evolved a variety of joint receiving algorithms. The paper introduces...

This paper studies the attitude control of a satellite in three-axis using only four thrusters. The mathematical model of the attitude is represented as a switched system with 16 subsystems. Each subsystem is defined based on the thruster's on/off status. The dynamic programming is utilised to find the optimal switching between subsystems such that a cost function is optimised. Furthermore, to generalise the solution for a specific domain of interest, neural network is employed for offline training and approximating the cost function. An offline training algorithm is suggested to find the optimal weights of the neurons and determine optimal switching. It is shown that the proposed method can execute a manoeuvre within fixed final time. Moreover, the control is robust against uncertainties in the system modelling. Finally, the system modelling and control approach is suggested as a framework to design low-cost attitude control system unit, suitable for microsatellite-class.

Bringing up of a small-scale mission assurance and engineering workflow is described. The experiences learned in the ZACUBE-1 mission prompted the development of an automated systems engineering platform leading to conformity in system design, test, and verification. The platform implements the methodology of systems engineering by coordinating diverse elements of the lifecycle and by incorporating the tools involved. The phase B/C activities of system modelling, simulations, prototyping, and design may be unified to a compounding effect and raising the level of the system view. The verification and validation (V&V) is achieved by integrating a test and measurement facility to the platform. With the platform, we accomplish rapid electrical and functional test and verification of the CubeSat subsystems and thermal validation in ‒20°C to +50°C cycle. The platform is automated by an application software which executes functional and thermal environment tests and provides support for requirements flow, system definition, embedded development, and simulations by integrating real-time target hardware. The platform is exploited in validating an S-band communications subsystem while economising time and obtaining valuable insight into transmission performance under thermal loading.