• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.165-173
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• 2021

Apophis is a near-Earth object with a diameter of approximately 340 m, which will come closer to the Earth than a geostationary orbit in 2029, offering a unique opportunity for characterizing the object during the upcoming encounter. Therefore, Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute has a plan to propose a space mission to explore the Apophis asteroid using scientific instruments such as a laser altimeter. In this study, we evaluate the performance metrics of a laser altimeter using a pseudorandom noise modulation technique for the Apophis mission, in terms of detection probability and ranging accuracy. The closed-form expression of detection probability is provided using the cross correlation between the received pulse trains and pseudo-random binary sequence. And the new ranging accuracy model using Gaussian error propagation is also derived by considering the sampling rate. The operation range is significantly limited by thermal noise rather than background noise, owing to not only the low power laser but also the avalanche photodiode in the analog mode operation. However, it is demonstrated from the numerical simulation that the laser altimeter can achieve the ranging performance required for a proximity operation mode, which employs commercially available components onboard CubeSat-scale satellites for optical communications.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.109-116
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• 2022

The small-scale magnetospheric and ionospheric plasma experiment (SNIPE) is a mission initiated by the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) in 2017 and comprises four 6U-sized nano-satellites (Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute Satellite-1, KASISat-1) flying in formations. The main goal of the SNIPE mission is to investigate the space environment in low Earth orbit at 500-km. Because Iridium & GPS Board (IGB) is installed on the KASISat-1, a communication simulation is required to analyze the contact number and the duration. In this study, communication simulations between the Iridium satellite network and KASISat-1 are performed using STK Pro (System Tool Kit Pro Ver 11.2) from the AGI (Analytical Graphics, Inc.). The contact number and durations were analyzed by each orbit and date. The analysis shows that the average access number per day is 38.714 times, with an average of 2.533 times per orbit for a week. Furthermore, on average, the Iridium satellite communication is linked for 70.597 min daily. Moreover, 4.625 min is the average duration of an individual orbit.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.42 no.9
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• pp.779-788
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• 2014

The satellite should generate electric power efficiently to perform the mission successfully within limited power. For this reason, the electrical power system of LEO satellites usually regulates the power which is generated from the solar cells using MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) method. This paper proposes advanced MPPT algorithm based on the fuzzy logic applied to small CubeSat satellite. The simulation has been performed to confirm the validity of the proposed method by interlocking between MATLAB/Simulink and STK (Systems Tool Kit). The EBA(Energy Balance Analysis) has also been performed at two different pointing modes of KAUSAT-5 for solar irradiation according to the satellite orbit and attitude, and load capacity varied with operation modes by Simulink and STK. The performance of fuzzy logic-based MPPT algorithm was verified through the EBA. The validity of the proposed MPPT algorithm based on the fuzzy logic was also confirmed by comparing with P&O (Perturbation & Observation) algorithm that is general in the MPPT.