Satellite Design Optimization for Differential Lift and Drag Applications

Utilizing differential atmospheric forces in the Very Low Earth Orbits (VLEO)regime for the control of the relative motion within a satellite formation is apromising option as any thrusting device has tremendous effects on the missioncapacity due to the limited weight and size restrictions of small satellites.One possible approach to increase the available control forces is to reduce themass of the respective satellites as well as to increase the available surfacearea. However, satellites of these characteristics suffer from rapid orbitaldecay and consequently have a reduced service lifetime. Therefore, achievinghigher control forces is in contradiction to achieving a minimum orbital decayof the satellites, which currently represents one of the biggest challenges inthe VLEO regime. In this work, the geometry of a given reference satellite, a3UCubeSat, is optimized under the consideration of different surface materialproperties for differential lift and drag control applications whilesimultaneously ensuring a sustained VLEO operation. Notably, not only theconsideration of sustainability but also the optimization with regard todifferential lift is new in literature. It was shown that the advantageousgeometries strongly depend on the type of gas-surface interaction and thus, twodifferent final designs, one for each extreme type, are presented. In bothcases, improvements in all relevant parameters could be achieved solely viageometry adaptions.