DEVELOPMENT OF SYSTEM ENGINEERING DESIGN TOOL (SEDT) FOR SMALL SATELLITE CONCEPTUAL DESIGN

Although satellites are getting smaller and the development duration is getting shorter, it still takes a long time to conduct a satellite conceptual design. The System Engineering Design Tool (SEDT) has been developed to effectively and efficiently design small satellites, which are in the range between 10kg (nanosatellite) and 200kg (microsatellite) to minimize the amount of labor involved. The present SEDT consists of five design blocks and has some characteristics different from system engineering tools previously developed. First of all, it adopts top-down design methodology which induces the architecture of distributed design. SEDT has also implemented the subsystem design process which is connected in series. It enables the design order of satellite system based on design parameters of satellite database constructed from over 200 small satellites launched between 1990 and 2004, which can improve the data reliability as a design reference. SEDT incorporates system budgets, mass and power, as verification parameters, and some characteristic trend equations. SEDT can do the conceptual system/subsystem design, analyze the design output, and predict the ROM development cost in accordance with user’s requirements. Specially, the SEDT implements GUI to provide convenience to the users.