A Systematic Approach for Cubesat Mission Risk Analysis

Abstract

When a cubesat is launched into the orbit, anomalies and failures are prone to occur due to the outer space harsh environment, and in-orbit corrective actions are in most cases not an option. These risks are further exacerbated due to the lack of quantitative/statistical data on components reliability in the literature, the potential lack of efficient fault tolerance architectures implemented onboard, and ad hoc limited testing. Therefore, while there is no rigorous or standard framework to devise a risk analysis plan for cubesats, this manuscript aimed to report the adopted approach, results, and lessons learned from Masat-1 project, the first initiative to develop a 1U cubesat mission in Morocco. This work is serving as our reference for a systematic mission risk assessment when going forward to develop a 3U cubesat mission. It will also serve as a complement to the current literature on cubesats reliability research.