Preliminary Study of Launch and Orbit of a CubeSat Using a Modified VSB-30 Launcher Vehicle

Abstract

During the last decade, the world faced the mass insertion of small satellites in the space technology scenario. Every year, the number of micro and nanosatellites launched increases and gets more attention from players in the space market. Despite the lack of a national launcher, the Brazilian Space Program is known for some successful development in the last century, including its space assets, such as a privileged launch site near the equator, a family of flight proven and reliable sounding rockets for suborbital flights and microgravity experiments and universities with established small satellites programs. Thereby, the present work proposes a modification of the Brazilian VSB-30 sounding rocket in order to allow the launch and insertion in low Earth orbit (LEO) of small satellites fulfilling the gap of a national launcher. It also presents a CubeSat orbital decay simulation and orbital insertion simulation with the modified rocket launched from the Alcântara Launch Center as a matter of verifying the potential of national missions using this modified launcher.

Keywords

• Flight simulation
• Orbit calculation
• Orbit decay
• Small scientific satellites
• Sounding rockets