Preliminary Mission Design and Power System Testing for Future Small Satellite Missions at the Space Flight Laboratory

This thesis first describes an automated test system developed for a unit of the Space Flight Laboratory's Modular Power System, the Micro-Switched Power Node. This unit is responsible for controlling, monitoring, and delivering power to loads in small satellites. Automating the test in Python successfully reduced per unit test time from approximately thirty minutes down to six minutes and suggests future test improvements for other Modular Power System components. Next, building upon power system knowledge, the CaneoSat preliminary mission design is presented. This is a Canadian Earth Observation Satellite mission prepared for the Canadian Space Agency's Micromission Clusters Pilots Project. The project combines a set of innovative Earth-observing payloads, developed within Canada, into a single satellite. A complete Phase A preliminary design study is presented, which includes discussion of the system requirements, orbit simulation, mass budget, power budget, and data budget for the conceptual satellite mission.