Picosats as Payload Carriers

MEROPE, the Montana State University Earth orbiting student satellite is currently scheduled for a November 2002 launch. The notion of building a fully-functional, 1-kg, 1-liter satellite is a very challenging one. Since design and construction began in early 2001, the low mass and low volume constraints have driven the need for difficult tradeoff decisions. In the process, much has been learned about the power, telemetry, weight, and volume allocations that could realistically be provided to a thirdparty payload using the picosat as a complete, prefabricated system bus. This paper will address the lessons learned in the effort of creating a generic picosat that would provide a known amount of power, radio communication, and designated volume. Included with this baseline model would be the flexibility to tailor subsystems to meet the needs of a specific payload. In this way, inexpensive carriers would be made available to pico-sized experiments with a shortened lead-time to launch, with design, construction and much of the bus testing time eliminated.