Research Information System
JOURNAL OF THERMAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING APPLICATIONS, vol.16, pp.1-7, 2024 (SCI-Expanded)
Designing and manufacturing of CubeSats have a rapidly growing interest lately as they
can serve in a wide range of space missions. To ensure that they are safe, stable, and functional
in harsh space environment, thermal studies are very important. New design
approaches have been introduced to manufacture more efficient and long-lasting satellites,
and deploying solar panels is one of them aiming to harness more solar energy. In the literature,
however, the studies focusing on CubeSats with deployed solar panels at different
angles are very limited. Due to this reason, we investigated the thermal influences of solar
panel deployment angle for a 3U CubeSat at low Earth orbit in this study. With this aim, the
solar panel deployment angles of 75, 60, 45, 30, 15, 0, −15, −30, −45, −60, and −75 deg
were modeled and simulated thermally. Besides, various orbital positions corresponding to
different Earth days were examined for the 3U CubeSat with fully deployed solar panels. In
addition, the heat absorbed by CubeSat structural panels and its solar panels were analyzed
in detail. The results showed that solar panel deployment angles are highly influential on the
satellite heating, and hence, maximum heat input occurs at the deployment angle of 15 deg.
It can be here noted that our results of this study may give rise to valuable contribution for
optimizing the design and energy budget of CubeSats. Furthermore, the available energy
harnessed by solar panels can be maximized accordingly.