Development of a Particle Damping Solution for PC-Boards in CubeSats

Abstract

CubeSats are mounted as a secondary payload to unique locations on launch vehicles that are primarily used to bring bigger satellites to space. They are subject to high frequency vibration excitations which causes CubeSat developers to concentrate on survivability instead of improvement by equipping with sensitive state-of-the-art components. Commercial isolation systems only exist for larger primary payloads. To protect the CubeSats sensitive parts as printed circuit boards, a new low cost, low weight method is developed. A particle damping solution is designed to damp printed circuit boards individually to improve their ability to withstand the harsh launch environment. The oscillation is reduced significantly by the particle dampers. An optimized solution is found that reduces the weight and space needed further so that it is better usable in CubeSats. The results of this thesis improve the possibilities for use of highly sensitive printed circuit boards to increase the possible space research possibilities feasible with CubeSats. Particle Dampers can be adopted for larger space applications as well, to decrease the required weight and cost for useful damping.