Reliability of CubeSats – Statistical Data, Developers’ Beliefs and the Way Forward

Title

Reliability of CubeSats – Statistical Data, Developers’ Beliefs and the Way Forward

 Author

Langer, M (Technische Universität München)
Bouwmeester, J. (TU Delft Space Systems Egineering) ORCID 0000-0002-2718-0799

 Date

2016

 Abstract

In this paper we investigate the data on 178 launched CubeSats and conduct a nonparametric and parametric analysis, where the dead-on-arrival (DOA) cases as well as the subsystem contribution to failure are specifically addressed. Using Maximum Likelihood Estimation, a Single Weibull and a 2-Weibull mixture parametric model are fitted to the non-parametric data. Furthermore, by combining developers’ beliefs on several reliability aspects from a survey conducted in late 2014 with data from past missions, we make a first attempt to correlate space engineering “best guesses” and intuition to actual data. Finally, the probabilistic CubeSat reliability estimation tool is introduced as a method to reduce the infant mortality of CubeSats: CubeSat developers should be able to estimate their required functional testing time on subsystem and system level at an early project stage, while targeting a desired reliability goal on their CubeSat.

 To reference this document use:

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:4c6668ff-c994-467f-a6de-6518f209962e

 Source

Proceedings of the 30th Annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites: Logan, United States

 Event

30th Annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites, 2016-08-06 → 2016-08-11, Logan, United States

 Part of collection

Institutional Repository

 Document type

conference paper

 Rights

© 2016 M Langer, J. Bouwmeester
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