Design and Development of a Payload for Recording CubeSat Acceleration, Temperature, and Pressure During Suborbital Flights

Nanosatellites have gained great relevance in the aerospace sector since they represent continuous and economic access to space. Therefore, this sector raises the need to guarantee the integrity of the payload through the structural subsystem. To achieve such a guarantee, studies are required through missions focused on the dynamic thermal and mechanical environment in which a nanosatellite operates since the materials from which the components of the various subsystems are manufactured must resist the vibration of the launch vehicles. and the thermal shocks to which it will be exposed in orbit. However, to avoid costly space missions while accessing an environment close to the one encountered by nanosatellites in space, it is attractive to carry out, in the first instance, cheaper tests with suborbital flights using stratospheric balloons. In this context, the present work deals with designing and developing a payload specifically designed for future suborbital tests of nanosatellites. This payload incorporates sensors and electronics to register accelerations, pressures, and temperatures during the suborbital flight. Here, the interest lies in the mechanical and thermal response of the payload structure and in particular the response to accelerations that can be experienced by a CubeSat-type structure during suborbital flight conditions. Hence, as part of the development of the payload, functionality tests under vibration on a shaker and at low temperatures in an ultra-freezer were carried out in the laboratory according to nanosatellite standards. These experiments reproduced the conditions that may occur in a suborbital flight, without considering conditions of a high atmosphere and gusts of wind. The obtained results are useful to determine if the payload meets the functionality requirements as an experimental platform, to be operated in suborbital flight, to test nanosatellites. Once the payload design is validated, it will be mounted on a gondola for an actual suborbital test. In the present work, only the laboratory tests are reported.