Kaarel Repän’s scientific contributions

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Publications (2)


SPACE PROPULSION 2022 Testing the NANO AR³ FEEP cubesat electric propulsion system at ESA Propulsion Laboratory
  • Conference Paper
  • Full-text available

June 2022

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524 Reads

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2 Citations

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Tony Schönherr

Space propulsion systems undergo thorough ground testing before being deployed in space. We report the results of a functional verification and performance characterisation test campaign of an integrated electric propulsion system for cubesats and microsats with purely electric thrust vectoring capability and no moving parts. Visualisations of the plume data obtained from Faraday cup scans show a clear, corresponding trend of the variation of the inclination and azimuth angles of the thrust vector when these are commanded. The divergence angle computed from plasma diagnostic data is 49°, independently of the achieved inclination of the ion beam.

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Figure 5. CubeSat Subsystems
Figure 6. Shock Test on the Koit CubeSat
Development and flight results of TalTech University CubeSat mission

Student Satellite program at TalTech, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia was initiated in 2014 with an aim to impart space technology knowledge to the Estonian students as well as assist towards development of new Space Technologies in Estonia. Two 1-Unit CubeSat named Koit and Hämarik that translates respectively as Dawn and Twilight in Estonian are part of the TalTech Satellite Program. The main scientific mission of the CubeSats was to demonstrate Earth observation and Optical Communication technology. Satellites had two types of cameras, an RGB Camera and an NIR Camera to carry out Earth Observation over Estonia. Testing High Speed Optical communication technology from LEO (Low Earth Orbit) was the second major scientific goal and for this purpose the CubeSats had LED (Light Emitting Diode). Koit CubeSat was successfully launched to space on-board Soyuz rocket on July 5, 2019 and Hämarik CubeSat was launched to Space on September 3, 2020 on-board Arianespace Vega Rocket. Koit CubeSat did not contact the Ground station for more than a year since its launch and it was assumed to be lost but on November 21, 2020 it made the first contact with the Ground Station. Hämarik CubeSat was first contacted on November 15, 2020. The team has been successful in updating software of Hämarik and further work is being done on the software with broader functions. Optical communication has not been tested yet because ground station for optical communication has not been developed yet but a good achievement in the path to optical communication was to see the satellites with small hobby telescope and one of the satellite team member was successful to detect the Hämarik CubeSat on 17 August 2021 which was at a distance of about 792 Kilometres. Satellite team is in contact with the Hämarik and has been successful to download a few thumbnails and is working to establish a quick data connection with it and determine its exact position so that the cameras can be focused towards the Earth in order to get the whole images captured by the CubeSat.

Citations (1)


... This method for thrust steering has been patented in 2019 [37]. A model of the ENPULSION AR³ [38] incorporating this technology was tested at the ESA Propulsion Laboratory, where the inclination of the ion beam was measured by means of Faraday cups for several thrust vector setpoints [39]. ...

Reference:

Field Emission Electric Propulsion: Enabling future Science and Earth Observation Missions
SPACE PROPULSION 2022 Testing the NANO AR³ FEEP cubesat electric propulsion system at ESA Propulsion Laboratory