Performance Analysis, Parametric Study, and Optimization of CubeSat Solar Power System for Ship Tracking of Marine Traffic

One of the promising applications of CubeSats is in the transportation sector where a CubeSat is used to track the movement of vehicles. For a CubeSat mission to be successful, an appropriate design of the CubeSat’s electric power system (EPS) is needed. In this work, performance analysis of a solar-powered CubeSat EPS was carried out for the tracking of ships and vessels moving to and from Sharjah’s harbor. Simulations of the power production from the solar photovoltaic (PV) cells were carried out using STK software. The effect of the orbit altitude and orbit inclination on the power production of the CubeSat and the access time with Sharjah’s ground station was investigated. Furthermore, an optimization approach of the CubeSat power production as a function of the altitude, inclination, and solar cells efficiency was carried out using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). A new quadratic equation that gives the CubeSat average power production as a function of the altitude, inclination, and solar cells efficiency was reported. The obtained quadratic equation achieved superior accuracy in predicting the average power production as the obtained regression coefficient (R
²
) and adjusted regression coefficient (adjusted R
²
) values were 0.9995 and 0.9992, respectively. The optimal orbital parameters were combined with the best pointing model to yield the maximum power production of the CubeSat EPS.