ALMASat-1 Power System Test Campaign

The microsatellite project ALMASat-1, started in 2003 at the university of Bologna, is scheduled for launch on-board the VEGA Maiden Flight, at present scheduled for the end of 2009. The design of the power system has been frozen and the flight hardware manufactured and assembled. The final step before spacecraft integration is a very severe test campaign in order to evaluate, as much as possible, the real performance of the power management board, battery packs and solar panels. The aim of this paper is to provide a brief description of the ALMASat-1 power system design, manufacturing and assembly, pointing out the results of the test campaign for the main components. In order to achieve a reliable system the testing phase needs to evaluate the behavior of the whole system both under nominal and critical operational conditions. On the ground, realistic operational conditions are quite hard to simulate unless a solar simulator chamber is available. The overall goal is to recreate typical working conditions through simulated orbital and attitude data. From these data, the power on each solar panel is estimated and supplied to the ALMASat-1 power system through a solar panels simulator. This simulation test-bed allows testing the power board flight hardware in order to evaluate the successful fulfillment of all functional and performance requirements. Finally, it allows spotting out potential functional limits, thanks to simulated system failures.