Development of an efficient Mono-frame CubeSat platform for fast and demanding

missions
Eyoas Ergetu AREDA*, Hirokazu MASUI, Mengu CHO
Department of Electrical and Space System Engineering, Kyushu Institute of Technology, Kitakyushu, Japan
[Link]-ergetu811@[Link]

CubeSats for advanced mass production missions are now possible. However, this requires high-throughput and fast
delivery due to the imposed time and budget constraints. Therefore, it is crucial to evaluate the entire development cycle and
streamline the process for enhancing efficiency.
The frequent assembly and disassembly of the satellite during the design and testing of the development have to be
efficient hence it affects the overall productivity and prevents any delay in the delivery of the satellites. From an integration
point of view, conventional CubeSat designs are prone to inefficiency as they utilize several structural parts and require longer
assembly time. This is due to the inherent mechanical and electrical interface method used to mount the internal subsystems
onto the main structural frame.
The envisioned structural design intends to reduce part count and complexity significantly using an additively
manufactured mono-frame CubeSat made out of AlSi12. The new and previous designs were evaluated to assess their
suitability for high-efficiency demanding mass-production applications. The initial phase of this research intends to
investigate the feasibility AM method for the production of a slot-based structure.

Key Words: Mono-frame CubeSat Structure, Slot, Efficient, Mass production

1. Background model. It is composed of only 8 structural parts. The scalability

of the concept was also evaluated using a 1U size CubeSat. The
A CubeSat is a standardized satellite platform with a size of evaluation was done by comparing this 1U FCP design with a
about a cubic decimeter. It has been widely used for conventional CubeSat structural design which utilizes several
technological demonstration missions mostly in an academic structural rails, rods, and frames to mount internal subsystem
environment to teach students how to build a real satellite. In assembly in stacked form as shown in Fig. 1(c). The evaluation
recent years CubeSat’s mission capability has increased from result shows significant improvement and its potential for the
these simple demonstrative missions to more complex and abovementioned demanding applications by reducing the
highly demanding applications. CubeSat mass production structural part count and complexity 1). Currently, this 3U
applications for constellation missions can be taken as a good design model is at the stage of a flight model.
example. Therefore, the design requirements to achieve a high After this initial FCP version, different other versions have
level of mission capability have increased. been developed based on the basic slot interface concept. For
As the commercial viability of CubeSats grows, the need for the 3U model, some improvements have been made to the EM
the fast delivery of the satellite in time using the low-cost option and FM models by further lowering the structural count to 5.
becomes vital. Narrowing down to a satellite integration and Similarly, for the 1U, after the production of the prototype using
assembly point of view, the critical factors that determine the only five structural parts, different other options were explored
efficiency of the development are the integration simplicity, to further reduce the part count down to a minimum by making
length of assembly steps, and production cost. Therefore, use of design modifications and alternative manufacturing
considering these factors in the initial phase of the development methods. This research seeks to explore the possibility of using
will have an impact on the project. an additive manufacturing method to produce an improved
mono-frame structure called FMCF.
1.1. Slot-based CubeSat structural platform

Prior to this research work, a similar study1) has been

conducted at the Kyushu Institute of Technology (Kyutech) to
investigate the issue associated with conventional type
structural designs and develop a flexible 3U CubeSat structural
concept named Flexible CubeSat platform (FCP) for highly
demanding applications like mass production as shown in Fig.
1(a) and (b). Part count and integration simplicity evaluation
have been conducted. The design concept of this flexible
structure is based on a slot interface that is tested as an STM

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 technique is selective laser melting (SLM) in which the
powders are fully melted and fused after laser scanning 5, 8).
The proposed Mono-frame slot structural concept is
produced using an SLM 3D printing technique to further reduce
the structural part count to a unit or two. All internal slot design
follows the previously developed standard platforms (FCP)
which use a subtractive manufacturing method. In addition, the
method of mounting the satellite subsystems into the slots using
special spacers is also unchanged.
(b) Special attention is required during the production phase to
(a)
maintain the tolerance and accuracy of the slot rails as small
misalignment could result in difficulty during the insertion of
the internal subsystems. It is also important to achieve a good
surface finish to the external rails to achieve the minimum
requirement set by the CubeSat interface document from JAXA
6)
. Due to the sliding mechanism used to assemble the internal
subsystems into the slots, close tolerance to the thickness of the
spacers and the width of the slots is required. Though this
parameter can be easily controlled in the traditional CNC
(c) milling method, for AM cases usually post-processing is
Fig. 1. (a) 3U FCP model. (b) 1U FCP model. (c) 1U conventional type required. The post-processing is however limited to the
design locations on the structure to where the machining tool can have
access. Thus, this should be taken into account during the
2.2. Additive manufacturing (3D Printing) design and production phases.
Additive manufacturing (AM), or 3D printing, is a process in In this initial phase of the research, the possibility of
which a structure is built layer by layer from a computer-aided producing a Mono-frame structure using the PBD method is
design (CAD) model. This method of manufacturing is assessed to understand the potential advantage and challenges.
transforming the way of design and manufacturing by lowering This research paper is organized into five sections. The
the part count of assemblies, reducing production time and cost, introduction section provides a brief background about CubeSat
as well as material waste. Complex parts that would be much mass production and the concept of a slot-based flexible
more difficult and costly to develop with traditional machining CubeSat platform using subtractive manufacturing.
processes can be constructed. These processes have the potential Furthermore, the current Mono-frame CubeSat platform is also
to fulfill demands for reducing the design-to-manufacture time introduced. Section two describes the design and
by replacing a series of production processes with a single-step manufacturing of the proposed design concept. The next section
process 2). Besides the widely used resin material for 3D evaluates the design and manufactured frame. The result and
printing, recently metal 3D printing technologies are also discussion are described in section four. The last section
growing. As research is progressing rapidly, promising results provides a conclusion and future work.
are opening up a range of possible applications across both
scientific and industrial sectors 2). 2. Design and Manufacturing
AM printing technology has been introduced in the space
industry for the manufacturing of satellite parts. A project As discussed in the previous section, the structural design of
called ReDSHIFT investigated the potential benefits of 3D the FMCP follows the previous Slot-based FCP design concept.
printing to reduce space debris using an 8U CubeSat. A The design is done according to the interface control document
complete redesign is performed to the primary structure taking from JAXA, JEM payload accommodation handbook, which is
conventionally manufacture 8U CubeSat designed as a baseline used as a design reference for dimensional, strength, and
to take full advantage of the benefits of AM 3). It was material requirements 6).
demonstrated that clear mass reductions and performance The internal width of slots is defined according to the FCP
improvements were achieved, which highlights the future model. The slot width is standardized to 6 mm. Some slots can
potential of this technology in the satellite design process and be adaptable to mount oversize components like the Battery and
the space sector. communication board. The special type of spacers is designed
Another research work done at the University of Texas at El to be attached to each subsystem as shown in Fig. 2. They are
Paso (UTEP) aimed to maximize CubeSat volume by similar to the spacers used for the FCP model. They are used as
embedding electronic parts into the structure. To evaluate the an interface between the structure’s slots and the subsystems to
feasibility, several 3D printing materials were assessed for their protect the PCBs from wearing during the sliding action.
electrical properties, radiation shielding, thermal properties,
and general structural performance in a printed mode 4).
Generally, metal AM systems can be classed as (a) powder
bed fusion (PBD), (b) direct energy deposition (DED), and (c)
droplet-on-demand systems. The most common PBD printing

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 2.2. 3D printing of FMCP prototype
After the completion of the design and modeling, an external
3D printing manufacturing company was selected based on
printing technique, material type, and printing cost. During the
manufacturing phase, some changes were suggested for
modification. The sharp 90-degree edges on the structure were
changed to help the 3D printing process. Those edges are
replaced with triangular wedges to increase the strength of the
support material during printing as shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 2. Unique type of spacer design.

A resin material like PEEK is used for the spacers that can even
be manufactured easily using a 3D printer with a close tolerance
with that of the corresponding width of the slot. They are
assembled easily at the four corners of the PCBs with press-fit
as shown in Fig. 3. Subsystems are then inserted into the
standardized slots.

Fig. 5. Modified edges of the frame

The printing was done using the SLM or direct metal printing
(DMP) technique which is based on PBD. A Prox300 3D
printing machine is used to manufacture the structure. The
quality, surface finish, and strength of the final print depend on
the printing parameters such as print layer thickness, and heat
treatment. During the manufacturing process of this Mono-
frame, special attention was given to parameters such as the
Fig. 3. Spacer attachment to the internal PCBs. precision of the main rail, and alignment of the slots. After
blasting, about Ra10~12 roughness level can be achieved with
2.1. Design of Mono-Cubic frame ProX300. In addition, a layer resolution of about 40~50
The structure is modeled using Fusion 360 CAD software microns can be attained. The lower the printing layer thickness,
taking into account the Design for Additive Manufacturing the better surface of the finishing and the longer the time it takes
(DfMP) approach. The Mono-frame has two internal mirrored to finish the printing.
faces where the slot rails are positioned as shown in Fig. 4 (a). There are obvious limitations in the selection of 3D printing
An additional structural plate is used to enclose the entire material for CubeSats. Materials that meet basic requirements
internal subsystems within the CubeSat frame and fully such as strength, weight, stress corrosion and quality of surface
constrain any movement. All the screw holes which are finish are limited in number. Besides, metal 3D print-based
necessary to mount the solar panels, the spring plunger and the materials are not often included in the list of approved materials
backplane board are already integrated into the structure as for space use. For instance, for CubeSats launched via JEM
unthreaded holes. The threads are then made later during the Small Satellite Orbital Deployer (J-SSOD), the acceptable list
postprocessing phase as shown in Fig 4 (b). In addition, some of satellite materials is specified considering their out-gassing
recessed features are integrated into the main structural rails to property 6). Utilization of materials different from this list
mount the deployment switches. requires lengthy negotiation with JAXA.
Several alloy materials were available in powder form.
Aluminum alloys such as AlSi12 and AlSi10Mg are mostly
used as structural metal 3D printing materials. AlSi12 has been
chosen for printing due to its higher yield strength and
lightweight. Heat treatment was not possible, because it reduces
the hardness of the printed structure. As a result, the stress could
not be relieved. The build direction was along the Z axis to
minimize the support material as much as possible as shown in
Fig. 6. The build orientation determines the surface finish. This
may affect factors, such as the production time, the support
structure requirements, residual stresses, surface roughness,
(a) (b)
microstructure, and the effects of build anisotropy 2).
Fig. 4. (a) 3D model of the Mono-Slot frame structure. (b) Side view of
the model with four holes for the solar panel mount.

3
 (c)
Fig. 8. (a) Conventional-based BIRDS-3 1U structural frame. (b) Slot-
Fig. 6. Build direction during printing.
based FCP frame. (c) Mono-CubeSat frame.

After the completion of the print, post-processing has been

BIRDS-3 structural frame is used as a conventional design
done for the surface of the external rails to meet the minimum
method where long rods are used to mount the internal Bus and
surface finish and GD&T requirements. The final printed 1U
payload stackings and main structural frames which support the
Mono-frame platform is shown in Fig. 7.
entire satellite assembly. Table 1 shows the count of main
structural frames and screws separately to provide an overview
of the improvement between the design concepts.
Table 1. Form of the paper.
Structure Type No. of structural No. of Structural
parts without Structural assembly
Spacers screws steps
Conventional: 27 26 16
BIRDS-3
Slot-based FCP 5 8 5
Slot-based 2 4 2
FMCP

Fig. 7. 3D Printed Mono-frame structural platform

A similar complexity evaluation metric is used as the FCP
model to calculate the difficulty of the design concept during
3. Evaluation of Design Concepts
the assembly and integration phases. The result of the analysis
is shown in Fig. 9. To evaluate the total complexity of the three
3.1. Part Count and complexity evaluation
structures’ design concepts, different complexity parameters
Part count analysis is done as it is an important parameter
were computed 1,7). For details information about the method
that affects the time required to finish assembly and integration.
used to compute the complexity, a reader may refer to the
The assembly step is also a function of structural parts count.
following research papers 1,9).
As the part count increase, the cost of production also increases.
The evaluation is made by comparing the proposed Mono-
frame structure with the conventional CubeSat design and slot-
based FCP as shown in Fig. 8.

(a) (b)

Fig. 9. Complexity value of the three structural design concepts.

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 which will be incorporated in the next phase of this project.
4. Result and Discussion
Acknowledgments
The part count evaluation shows significant improvement in the
number of structural parts and screws compare to both The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the
conventional type and slot-based FCP structures. Compared to Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI)
a total of five structural parts for FCP, only two structural parts through the Promotion of Energy Saving and Related
are used for the Mono-frame structure having a similar interface International Standards.
design. This is attributed to AM method used. A similar
reduction of about 50% is achieved for the screw count. References
As shown in Fig. 9 the complexity of the FMCP design is
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Visual inspection of the printed structure shows that the melting, Progress in Materials Science, Volume 106, December 2019.
internal slot rails were slightly deformed as shown in Fig. 10. [Link]
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5. Conclusion and Future Work

In general, it can be concluded that the phase-I of additively

manufactured Mono-frame CubeSat structure has future
potential for improvement as the technology is growing fast.
The evaluation shows this FMCP design enhanced the
efficiency of the CubeSat development from that of a similar
design using the subtractive manufacturing method. This has
special importance for demanding applications like CubeSat
mass production where easy and flexible CubeSat integration
with minimal assembly steps is required. However, the
limitation in the quality of the print requires further extensive
experiments on the right printing technique, material type, and
printing parameters to obtain the desired quality.
Design improvement to reduce the total weight of the
structure is also part of future work. This issue is common for
both FCP and FMCP designs as the slot rails cause extra weight
to the total structure assembly. This issue can be addressed by
shortening the rail only to the top and bottom parts of the frame