DRAGON - 8U Nanosatellite Orbital Deployer

The Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences (SRC PAS) together with Astronika company have developed an Orbital Deployer called DRAGON for ejection of the Polish scientific nanosatellite BRITE-PL Heweliusz (Fig. 1). The device has three unique mechanisms including an adopted and scaled lock and release mechanism from the ESA Rosetta mission MUPUS instrument. This paper discusses major design restrictions of the deployer, unique design features, and lessons learned from development through testing. Introduction BRITE Constellation is a group of scientific nanosatellites whose purpose is to study oscillations in the light intensity of the most luminous stars (brighter than magnitude +3.5) in our galaxy. The observations will have a precision at least 10 times better than achievable using ground-based observations. The BRITE (BRight Target Explorer) mission formed by Austria, Canada and Poland will send to space a constellation of six nanosatelites, two from each country. BRITE-PL satellite is based on the Generic Nanosatellite Bus (GNB) from the Canadian SFL/UTIAS (Space Flight Laboratory / University of Toronto, Institute for Aerospace Studies). The spacecraft are to use the SFL XPOD (Experimental Push Out Deployer) as a separation system. Figure 1. DRAGON Orbital Deployer and BRITE-PL Heweliusz Spacecraft (in a safety box) * Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland