Aerospace and Electronic Systems - April 2019 - 30

Feature Article:

DOI. No. 10.1109/MAES.2019.2911138

ArgoMoon: There is a Nano-Eyewitness on the SLS
Valerio Di Tana, Biagio Cotugno, Simone Simonetti, ARGOTEC srl.
Gabriele Mascetti, Edmondo Scorzafava, Simone Pirrotta, Italian Space
Agency, ASI.

INTRODUCTION
Space agencies are pioneering space through common
capability and technology developments, enabling exploration and human expansion across multiple solar system
destinations [1], including the Moon, asteroids and Mars
[2]: this journey into Deep Space has begun with exploration systems testing and demonstrations on Earth and in
space. As part of the human exploration, the Exploration
Mission 1 (EM-1) will launch the Space Launch System
(SLS) rocket in order to insert the Orion unmanned capsule
into a looping orbit around the moon: Orion will pass
through the Van Allen radiation belts, fly past the Global
Positioning System satellite constellation and approach
the Moon; on the trip to the Moon, Orion will flyabout
100 km above the Moon surface, and then use the
Moon's gravitational pull to propel into a new deep retrograde orbit about 70 000 km from the Moon [3], thus
allowing the capsule to test its capabilities before accommodating a crew on-board. The National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA) directed the SLS program
to host thirteen "secondary payloads" on the SLS rocket
towards the Moon during the EM-1, aiming at increasing
and encouraging the development and use of CubeSats
for Deep Space applications [4]. Among several candidates, ArgoMoon, a 6U CubeSat designed and built by
Argotec and coordinated by the ASI, has been selected
as the European contribution to EM-1 [5]: one of its
most interesting features is the flexible design, which
allows ArgoMoon to operate in different scenarios for
different interplanetary missions.
ArgoMoon's platform (see Figure 2) is designed to
withstand the environmental loads of the Deep Space
environment: due to the shielded satellite layout, the
Authors' current addresses: B. Cotugno, V. Di Tana,
S. Simonetti, Argotec s.r.l., 10155 Turin, Italy; G. Mascetti,
E. Scorzafava, S. Pirrotta, Italian Space Agency, ASI,
00133 Rome, Italy.
Manuscript received September 29, 2018, revised
February 14, 2019, and ready for publication April 23,
2019.
Review handled by Peter Kinman.
0885-8985/19/$26.00 ß 2019 IEEE
30

maximum cumulated total dose is referred to around
3 krad; for mounted electronic parts which are secondary
electron emission free, the minimum radiation hardness
for those is referred to around 30 krad (see Figure 1).
The ArgoMoon satellite project is robust and reliable
considering that it is tolerant to the single fault except
for the parts which are not redundant due to volume and
weight constraints.

CUBESATS
From the concept of affordable opportunities for University and private companies, CubeSats are now considered
a solid part of the new space industry, allowing challenging CubeSat missions deeper and further into space.
The concept was developed at the end of the 1990s
by California Polytechnic State University and Stanford
University to help engineering students become familiar
with the design process of complex space systems and conduct experiments in space with relatively low-cost platforms
[6]. The standard is based on the use of an elemental unit (U)
with a size of approximately 10 Â 10 Â 10 cm3. The CubeSat size is a multiple of an elemental unit which is allocated
within the satellite systems allowing the satellite to survive
and communicate from orbit; this standardization simplified
the design phases and the search for launch opportunities,
allowing a wider group of users to access space [7].
After almost 30 years of activities, hundreds of CubeSats have been launched [8] and the market offers a wide
selection of tailored components for all different purposes:
now that the capability to perform missions in Low-Earth
Orbit (LEO) has been widely proven, the space agencies
are opening new scenarios for this market [9].
Thanks to challenging missions and the most recent
advancement in technology [10], CubeSats are demonstrating their capability to operate in Deep Space offering
a new operational framework to be tested.

SLS AND ORION MISSION
The SLS is an American heavy-lift expendable vehicle
developed by the NASA as a Space Shuttle-derived rocket

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Aerospace and Electronic Systems - April 2019

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