Thruster Pointing Mechanism Development
The increasing interest for Deep-Space cubesat is leading in the near future to the need of adequate deployment systems (``Cubesat Dispensers``) suitable for deep space applications, taking into account all the environmental (e.g. radiation) and mission constraints (e.g. need for power supply to the cubesat, possibility to upload SW updates, need for accurate release conditions).
The first potential use case has been identified in the Hera Planetary Defense mission, that intends to deploy two 6U cubesats around the Didymos asteroid binary system. Each of those CubeSats will be containerised in a standard deployment system. In addition, a set of requirements will be injected by ESA in the activity to ensure compatibility with the first use case.
The objective of the activity is to design, manufacture and test and Engineering Qualification Model for a 6U Dispenser suitable for deep space missions compatible with the Hera mission