BOREALIS – Biofilm Onboard Radiation Exposure Assessment Lab In Space – is a 6U CubeSat mission developed under the Italian Space Agency’s ALCOR program. It introduces a dual-phase orbital profile enabling biological experimentation in both Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), making BOREALIS one of the first CubeSat missions to attempt a LEO-to-MEO orbital transfer. This paper focuses on the mission’s engineering innovations that make this transfer feasible, particularly the propulsion subsystem based on a water-fueled pulsed plasma thruster and the Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS), validated through numerical and Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) experiments. Conducted in collaboration between the School of Aerospace Engineering of Rome and the University of Arizona, the tests demonstrated that a commercial ADCS can maintain sub-degree pointing during long-duration thrust operations when integrated within a closed-loop Simulink environment.
Mission Design and Enabling Technologies for a LEO-to-MEO Dual- Phase CubeSat Mission: The BOREALIS Platform / Nardi, Lorenzo; Curti, Fabio; Carletta, Stefano; Abbasrezaee, Parsa; Contessa, Lorenzo Thomas; Di Serafino, A.; Omrani, Vahid; Caputo, Domenico; Palmerini, Giovanni; Lovecchio, Nicola; Sriramoju, Sahithi; Siva Sankaram Emani, Vs; Burgio, Nunzio; Petrucci, Giulia; Mazzotti, Riccardo; Mirasoli, Mara; Lorenzini, Fabio; Mergé, Matteo; Nascetti, Augusto. - (2025). ( AIDAA International Congress 2025 Turin ).
Mission Design and Enabling Technologies for a LEO-to-MEO Dual- Phase CubeSat Mission: The BOREALIS Platform
Lorenzo Nardi;Fabio Curti;Stefano Carletta;Parsa Abbasrezaee;Lorenzo Thomas Contessa;A. Di Serafino;Vahid Omrani;Domenico Caputo;Giovanni Palmerini;Nicola Lovecchio;Sahithi Sriramoju;Nunzio Burgio;Giulia Petrucci;Fabio Lorenzini;Augusto Nascetti
2025
Abstract
BOREALIS – Biofilm Onboard Radiation Exposure Assessment Lab In Space – is a 6U CubeSat mission developed under the Italian Space Agency’s ALCOR program. It introduces a dual-phase orbital profile enabling biological experimentation in both Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), making BOREALIS one of the first CubeSat missions to attempt a LEO-to-MEO orbital transfer. This paper focuses on the mission’s engineering innovations that make this transfer feasible, particularly the propulsion subsystem based on a water-fueled pulsed plasma thruster and the Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS), validated through numerical and Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) experiments. Conducted in collaboration between the School of Aerospace Engineering of Rome and the University of Arizona, the tests demonstrated that a commercial ADCS can maintain sub-degree pointing during long-duration thrust operations when integrated within a closed-loop Simulink environment.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
