• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.27-33
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• 2014

The CubeSat, which was first launched to verify new technologies and for educational purposes, is now widely used as an educational tool since it makes possible development of manpower through practical training to produce the satellite at low development costs. At present, research and development on the CubSat is rapidly expanding in domestic and foreign universities. As one of the final 3 teams selected in the 2013 CUBE SATELLITE CONTEST organized by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, Chosun University is also currently conducting R & D of STEP Cube Lab, which is a CubeSat scheduled to be launched in 2015 and whose main task is to verify space-based technologies in orbit. The present paper tries to present an overview of the CubeSat of Chosun University whose development is being led by its undergraduate students, and further, introduce the strengths of the present development program for developing space experts, based on the educational achievements from the R & D.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.37-42
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• 2015

The CubeSats is classified as a pico-class satellite which requires a ground station to track the satellite, transmit commands, and receive an on-orbit data such as SOH (State-of-Health) and mission data according to the operation plan. In order to this, the ground station system has to be properly designed to perform a communication to with the satellite with enough up- and down-link budgets. In this study, a conceptual design of the ground station has been performed for the CubeSat named as STEP Cube Lab. (Cube Laboratory for Space Technology Experimental Project). The paper includes a ground station hardware interface design, a link budget analysis and a ground station software realization. In addition, the operation plan of the ground station has been established considering the STEP Cube Lab. mission requirements.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.430-436
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• 2014

The mission objective of STEP Cube Lab. (Cube Laboratory for Space Technology Experimental Project) classified as a pico-class satellite is to verify the technical effectiveness of payloads such as variable emittance radiator, SMA washer, oscillating heat pipe and MEMS based solid propellant thruster researched at domestic universities. In addition, the MEMS concentrating photovoltaic power system and the non-explosive holding and separation mechanism with the advantages of high constraint force and low shock level will be developed as the primary payloads for on-orbit verification. In this study, the feasibility of the mission actualization has been confirmed by the preliminary system design.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.42 no.9
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• pp.802-808
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• 2014

MEMS based solid propellant thruster researched for the purpose of an academic research will be verified at space environment through CubeSat program. For this, the temperature of the MEMS thruster should be within allowable operating temperature range by proper thermal control to prevent the ignition failure caused by ignition time delay and to guarantee the structural safety of the MEMS thruster in the low temperature. In this study, we proposed an effective thermal control strategy, that is to use micro-igniter as a heater and temperature sensor for active thermal control instead of using additional heater. The effectiveness of the strategy has been verified through on-orbit thermal analysis of CubeSats with MEMS thruster.