The A2C pole of IJCLab was contacted a few months ago by a team from the University of Dublin to take charge of the structural modeling of the first Irish satellite: EIRSAT-1. This 2U CubeSat is developed as part of the European Space Agency's Fly Your Satellite program, in which a team of students from the University of Dublin has been participating since 2017. They designed the satellite using Autodesk CAD and produced the first calculation reports under Autodesk NASTRAN. The finite element analysis of the flight model had yet to be provided to the European Space Agency (ESA).
It was Philippe Rosier (Engineering Pole, Mechanical Department, Design Office) who took charge of this study, because of his involvement in the "structural calculation and mechanical architecture" activities led by Julien Bonis (also Design Office). studies). Trained on NX-NASTRAN, and particularly in "vibration", thanks to the involvement of IJCLab in the LiteBIRD project, it took more than 200 hours of work and calculation spread over 4 months, and 3 TB of data, to generate a 90-page report defining the natural frequencies of the system, the vibration modes, and the stress safety margins under quasi-static stresses and random vibration. The ESA review was successfully passed on October 7, 2022.
The interaction with the Dublin team, with which the A2C cluster is already collaborating on the COMCUBE project, was excellent and particularly instructive. This collaboration continues today with tests still ongoing ahead of the launch of EIRSAT-1 early next year. This opportunity made it possible to expand IJCLab's skills in mechanical calculations and simulations in the space field. Congratulations to Philippe and to all those involved in this wonderful achievement!