Structural Analyses for a Typical Small Satellite

Miniaturisation of electronics, newer materials especially composites and advanced manufacturing techniques including 3D printing has encouraged the development of small satellites. This enabled many commercial companies to venture in to this area since the development can be made possible with small budget. The market size of small satellite is expected to flourish in the next few years. Small satellites are used mainly in the areas of Earth observation services, monitoring of agricultural fields, detection of climatic changes, disaster mitigation, meteorology, etc. In the current day scenario of launch vehicle industry, every mission of a launch vehicle is unique since they are used for putting satellites of different mass, size, shape, purpose and to various orbits. Satellites are exposed to dynamic/fluctuating excitations due to different dynamic environment from lift off to the completion of its intended mission. The dynamic environment of the satellite will be different for different launch vehicle configuration and its mounting scheme. This paper addresses quasi-static and dynamic analyses carried out for a typical small satellite using indigenously developed finite element software FEAST^SMT by Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC). This study helps in assessing the structural adequacy of small satellite as well as the acceleration level experienced by different components and packages. This will help the satellite team to modify the structure, change the mounting location or by adopting new mounting schemes of components/packages in order to optimise the design well before realising the hardware.