Integrated spacecraft design tools

Abstract

The thesis surveys current software tools to design satellites and develops an integrated spreadsheet-based tool for preliminary spacecraft design. First, several existing and future design tools - both commercially available and company proprietary are discussed and evaluated. Second, a spreadsheet-based design tool which is generally applicable to any earth-orbiting satellite is developed. Preliminary design of all satellite subsystems is performed on separate sheets of the Excel workbook. Based on user-entered orbital data, propellant and mass budgets are also calculated. The design technique and spreadsheet implementation is presented along with the underlying "first principles" theory and equations.