Abstract:
CubeSat technology has been well established in the area of space engineering
for almost two decades. Because of standardisation of components and
procedures, development and launch costs of space missions are greatly
reduced and space based experiments become more affordable for the broader
community. Up to now, all CubeSat missions except for one have been
launched in Low Earth Orbit. With recent developments and new launch
opportunities, sending CubeSat missions with various on board experiments
beyond Low Earth Orbit into interplanetary space becomes possible.
Major space agencies have ambitious plans to send human space missions to
Mars and other bodies in the Solar System. Traveling beyond Earth’s orbit,
living cells in the human body will be exposed to harmful effects of space
radiation. Therefore, before such interplanetary mission takes place, detailed
study of effects of space radiation on human like mammalian cells should be
conducted. An interplanetary mission based on the CubeSat platform would be
the most affordable way of conducting such experiment.
The main aim of the reported research work is to investigate if adequate space
radiation protection and strict thermal environment requirement can be achieved
and maintained for biological payload with higher forms of living cells, within a
CubeSat spacecraft platform during interplanetary flight. This thesis is divided
into a theoretical part – the literature review and methodological part –
numerical simulations which are for space radiation performed by NASA
developed software OLTARIS and for thermal analysis of the spacecraft and
installed components with ESATAN –TMS modelling software.
From the performed research work it can be concluded that adequate radiation
protection can be implemented within the CubeSat payload compartment, so as
not to exceed the acute dose limit set even during long duration interplanetary
space flight, while at the same time leaving enough payload volume for the
installation of the experimental biological payload and experimental
instrumentation within the extra installed radiation protection.
In maintaining the thermal environment inside the payload bay with biological
material as well as in maintaining the survival temperature of some electronic
components, careful heat management and active thermal control – additional
electrical heating is required. There was no requirement for active cooling in the
realistic mission scenarios considered.
