A Design Template for GAS Satellite Payloads

Abstract

The Naval Postgraduate School has designed a small, low cost, general purpose satellite bus, ORION. An investigation of the structural requirements has been done for ORION as an extended Get Away Special (GAS) canister payload. The structure must be able to withstand the design limit load of 6.0 g's acceleration in ± X and ± Y, and a limit load of 10.0 g's in the ± Z. The structure must also have modal vibration greater than 35 Hz. A finite element analysis in linear bending considers an aluminum stiffened cylinder with two equipment plates and a top plate. Considerable weight reduction from the original design results. The structure configured for ORION may be helpful to other GAS payload users as a design template for similar satellites.