Analysis and Design of Test-Rigs for Laboratory Tests Under Microgravity Conditions

The restrictions imposed by the pandemic have severely affected the aerospace sector. To cope with this deepening crisis, therefore, the aerospace industry should use its know-how in the implementation of disruptive and highly innovative projects that would lead it, in the medium to long term, to cope with the current post-pandemic economic crisis. This is the context of the collaboration between the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the European Space Agency (ESA) in connection with the European Advanced Generation Carrier (Vega). Such launchers simultaneously put into orbit about 50 small, lightweight satellites that will be used for a variety of applications-including earth observation, telecommunications, science, technology, and education. Given the growing interest of companies in this field, it was hypothesized to create a test rig for testing under microgravity conditions. The following work presents the design of a parallel manipulator capable of simulating flight conditions and performing vibration tests specifically for this type of minisatellite. The 3D model of the manipulator and CubeSat was developed in Solidworks while the rigid/flexible multibody model was modeled in Mathworks’ Simscape multidomain environment.