S2TEP - A NEW SCALABLE SATELLITE PLATFORM

Abstract

The German Aerospace Center (DLR) is currently studying the development of a cost-effective micro-satellite platform called S2TEP (Small Satellite Technology Experiment Platform). The platform shall provide cost-efficient and frequent access to space for technology experiments and small scientific payloads up to 25 kg. The first mission of the S2TEP platform (S2TEP-1) shall establish the reusable design and pave the way for further missions. As a long term goal for follow-on missions the development time shall be reduced in the range of two years to provide a high launch frequency. The S2TEP platform itself was designed based on a reference mission, which comprises several DLR technologies and payloads to provide a common set of requirements [1]. A main design objective is to support different types of missions with only minor changes in the overall design. Among others, the reference mission provides performance ranges and constraints, which forms the base for deriving e.g. a useful range of solar cell area. Based on this assessment a scalable configuration was derived, which can remain in its major configuration very similar from mission to mission. This is achieved by dividing the system into major subcomponents, which can be scaled individually. Interference between these subcomponents is naturally, but the configuration has been designed to minimize this interaction. Deriving a variant of the platform for a specific use case is shown based on the S2TEP-1 mission.