Mechanical design and analysis of nano- and pico-satellites and deployers

This work aims at studying the mechanical behaviour of nano- and pico-satellites, with CubeSats and PocketQubes as the references, and designing and producing a deployment system for PocketQubes, to be integrated in a CubeSat platform. Through this project, the 3Cat-4 spacecraft will be analysied in order to assess the impact of changes made to its architecture, both at system and subsystem level, and the results evaluation will aid in decision making regarding modifications of the mechanical components. The analyses will serve as the reference for the mechanical testing during the Environmental Test Campaign (ETC). Additionally, the response of the spacecraft against the different vibro-acoustic and mechanical loads will serve as the starting point for the design of a PocketQube P-POD (Poly-Picosatellite Orbital Deployer), which will be a major subsystem integrated in 3Cat-8, a new mission of the NanoSat Lab currently in Phase B