Statistical Analysis of CubeSat Mission Failure

There are multiple common reasons for CubeSats’ failure. These include power, mechanical, and communications issues. Some have suggested that the problem lies within the design and development process itself, in that universities and research institutions mainly focus on system and component level designs, while neglecting requirements’ elicitation needed beforehand. A survey was conducted during the 14th Annual CubeSat Workshop at CalPoly, San Luis Obispo, to identify the challenges and needs of such groups and initial results from this survey and its analysis are reported in this paper. This survey was conducted with students in the U. S. and Europe, working on small spacecraft development and majoring in disciplines including computer science and mechanical engineering. The survey considered multiple factors prospectively associated with mission success or failure, including the possibility of adding or deleting components into/from the system design and system modifications’ feasibility. Additionally, the respondents were asked the objectives of their CubeSat mission and whether their system design covered the entire system (e.g., structure, behavior, requirements, and system parametric). The problems identified by them related to tools, models, or both have also been reported. Finally, participants were asked whether they helped in reducing the system testing time or employed a CubeSat reference model. This paper concludes with a discussion regarding what has been learned from data analysis. Plans for future work are also discussed