Mission

The technical objective of the UWE-4 mission is the in-orbit demonstration and characterization of an electric propulsion system for 1U CubeSats. For this, the project cooperates with the TU Dresden that develops the NanoFEEP propulsion system. This system fits the CubeSat’s strict requirements in terms of size and power consumption, and has therefore been selected as the UWE-4 technical payload. The propulsion system consists of the thruster heads that are being integrated into the CubeSat rails and the power processing unit (PPU) that is realized as standard subsystem according to the UNISEC Europe standard. The primary technical mission objective is to activate the thrusters and measure their thrust in different operating ranges. Secondary objectives include attitude control using the four thrusters and eventually basic orbit control maneuvers.
In order to further extend the satellite platform’s features and homogenize its architecture, a cooperation with the Zentrum für Telematik e.V. (ZfT), Würzburg, has been initiated. Developments especially related to the On-Board Computer (OBC) and attitude determination sensor suite are carried out in close cooperation.