Power Management of Lunar CubeSat Mission EQUULEUS Under Uncertainties of Power Generation and Consumption

This paper highlights the power system design of the equilibrium lunar–Earth point 6-unit spacecraft (EQUULEUS), which will fly to the second Earth–Moon Lagrange point and perform a variety of scientific and technological missions. The limited power generation and high uncertainties of power generation and consumption are major difficulties encountered by the electrical power system of EQUULEUS for ensuring the feasibility of its mission. To address these issues, some methodologies are described in this paper in detail, which include the unique component arrangement, maximum power-point tracking function, and probabilistic analysis of power management. For the probabilistic analysis, Monte Carlo simulations are conducted based on a numerical model, and the feasibility of the power balance between generation and consumption is verified.