Concurrent design sessions
Work through every subsystem of a satellite in one place and roll the budgets up automatically.
Start a session
Open one of your mission designs and press New Session under Concurrent Design Sessions. Each session has the tabs Mission Analysis, Payload, Structure, Thermal, Power, ADCS, TT&C, OBC, Budget Rollup and Simulation.
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Mission Analysis
Set the orbit and add ground stations with Add Ground Station. The tab includes the eclipse analysis that the other tabs use.
Payload
Describe the payload and add components with Add Component or pick from the Component Library. Choose a maturity level for each item. It adds a margin, from 30 percent for TRL 1 to 2 down to 5 percent for COTS or qualified parts and 0 for parts already in flight.
Structure and Thermal
The Structure tab collects the structure, for example a 1U, 3U or 6U structure, and its material such as Aluminum 6061-T6 or 7075-T6. The Thermal tab holds the thermal requirements and the thermal equipment, such as a thermal strap.
Power
Enter the solar cell area and efficiency, the battery capacity and the bus voltage. The tab compares the power generated with the average power used, weighted by duty.
ADCS, TT&C and OBC
ADCS holds the pointing requirements and equipment such as a 3 axis ADCS board. TT&C holds the antennas, the gain and the link budget. OBC holds the on board computer, for example its processor and clock speed.
Roll up the budgets
Open Budget Rollup and press Run Budget. The NMD design engine computes the mass, power and data budgets with the margins you chose. Fix any line that shows a negative margin and run it again.
Simulate the orbit
The Simulation tab propagates the orbit and lists the events such as eclipses and passes over your ground stations.
- The tutorials walk through exactly this flow with numbers to check against.