Orbital Study of MSU CubeSath

Abstract

The project is an orbital design study of a proposed CubeSat at Mississippi State University. The launch date is not specified. As for the mission, it is defined as forest fire detection. CubeSats are small satellites that are 10 x 10 x 10 cm in dimension and has a mass no more than 1 kg. They are currently used in different applications in many countries as an easy access to space. The analyses of this project have been carried out using a commercial software package, System Tool Kit (STK), developed by Analytical Graphics, Incorporated. This software provides a tool for performing simulations required for determining the orbit or the trajectory for satellites. In addition, a perturbation orbital study has been conducted and different propagators have been tested.