Nano Satellites and Space Debris - Research Paper Example

These satellites are fabricated using the Commercial Off The Shelves (COTS) devices and are highly capable of accomplishing their missions. The prominent picosatellite is the lightweight CubeSat that has a wet mass of approximately 1 kg. These are scalable satellites and are deployed using Poly-PicoSatellite Orbital Deployer ( P – POD). The next generation of miniature satellites forms the Aerospace was the MEMS – Enabled PicoSatellite Inspector (MEPSI) series. These were more of a nanosatellite series.

These MEPSI satellites had one or more satellite inspectors inside a big host satellite that would be ejected with minimum impact on volume and mass from the orbit if there is any orbit anomaly. The major functions of these MEPSI satellites were mission inspection including ranging, propulsion, closed-loop attitude control, and radio downlink. The applications of these nano and picosatellites are multi-fold . in spite of the advantages of these nanosatellites, there are many issues related to technical challenges, cost challenges and the problem of waste satellites.

These waste satellites pose the serious threat as space debris. This dissertation deals with this nano and picosatellites and also discusses the space debris and their mitigation techniques.This chapter of the dissertation intends to introduce the concepts and achievements in space missions in human history and the evolution of space research. This section also deals with the background of the dissertation’s major topic, the hypotheses chosen for the study and the structure of the dissertation.

Satellites have become a part of our everyday life. The applications of these satellites range from satellite Television, satellite telephony, VoIP, internet communication, video conferencing facilities, geographical information systems, space research, extraterrestrial research, disaster management systems, telemedicine, and consultation. Thus satellites dominate human life from entertainment to life-saving activities.