Experimental testing of the thermal behaviour of a CubeSat

The purpose of this thesis is to introduce the concept of thermal testing for a nanosatellite in general, and applied to the 3CAT-4 project of the NanoSat Lab, where the work has been carried out. Testing serves the function of verification for a system, subsystem or, more in general, a unit and thermal testing is an especially important field: the necessity of thermal test is due to the different thermal environment the CubeSat will encounter once in orbit. There are also different kind of thermal tests that can be performed depending on the type of unit: for instance a custom-made unit will need to be qualified. Therefore, in order to perform a thermal test, first it has to be designed according to the units and their necessities, and the thermal environments. To perform the thermal tests, the Space simulator has been studied and maintained in all its components. This equipment mimics the thermal vacuum conditions of the space environment and is used to test the units in such conditions: it includes a turbo pump for the vacuum, infrared lamps for heating and liquid nitrogen for cooling. The machinery has also been characterized in terms of its performance during time. Results of preliminary thermal tests are finally discussed at the end, and the required documentation produced for the programme is introduced