As our prototyping wraps up, we reflected on our design solution in hopes to better understand the reasoning behind the decisions we made, as well as to assess different methods we could use if we had the opportunity to repeat the entire process. This will give us insight into any future projects we may tackle.
While our design met the criteria and successfully addressed the design problem, we feel as though our solution might have benefited from a couple of changes.
Clearance of our CubeSat within the CubeSat Deployer
A more compact and slim design would allow our solution to slide freely through the CubeSat deployer, rather than occasionally get snagged at the wrong angles. One way this could be addressed would be with a thinner MLI blanket with a recalculated and larger radiator size to compensate for the fewer layers of protection.
Using an alternative to TC-105 (see fig 1&2) to hold the MLI blankets in place could reduce the amount of materials used and potentially even reduce the weight of the CubeSat overall. A viable alternative to TC-105 brackets would be buttons which penetrate through the MLI Blankets and are attached to the body of the CubeSat (see fig 3). However, the lost area of the MLI blankets would have to be compensated with a larger radiator.
Fig 1: TC-105 mount
Fig 2: TC-105 stitched to the MLI Blanket on our build
Fig 3: MLI blankets held in place by buttons onto an apparatus.
During our time working on the project, we felt that we could have planned some things better in order to help us reach our goal of successfully addressing the design problem in a more efficient and orderly manner.
We feel that the design process would have been more streamlined and organized if we took time to refocus and stick to our timeline. Around the middle of November, we began to stray from our plan and decided to tackle the first thing we thought of. This led to disarray and misalignment in our schedule, and if we had avoided this our solution may have been more refined and sturdy.
We also feel that both our internal and external communications could have been better as well. Within the team, we may have benefited from more frequent updates and check ins to make sure that we all tackled different problems and everyone knew their responsibilities and tasks. As for external communications, reaching out for more guidance and resources from other sources might have given us fresh and new insights that could have helped our working efficiency and solution details.
A question we had to face ourselves with is: "Did we document each step of the design process in this portfolio well enough so that anyone else interested in the problem could pick up this work and both replicate what we have done as well as continue working from where we ended up?". This question forced us to look into our documentation, as well as the formatting and organization of this website.
Details instructions and processes necessary to faithfully recreate our prototype, as well as instructions to set up testing procedures.
Details material and cost breakdown
We reached the conclusion that our documentation and website allow for our solution to be replicated to a very high level of accuracy. And while we did successfully meet the design criteria, the effectiveness and time of dissipation can be improved, so we also believe that we have left a lot of room for improvement for future work and iterations in the event that others wish to continue to work on this problem.
Praneel's Reflection: Reflecting on our process and solution, I learned a lot about my own working mannerisms and acknowledged the things that we did right and wrong both as a team and individually. While I do understand that we aren't experts on project development just yet, with this reflection I think that our whole team feels more confident about projects that we might take on in the future.
Shreyan's Reflection: Over the course of working on this project, I was able to dive into various new branches of engineering while developing various general skillsets, such as designing and reiterating prototypes, I can utilize going into college and my future career.
Rowand's Reflection: Through this project, I've significantly improved my thermal analysis skills and became much more efficient in applying the engineering design process. The knowledge and skills that I've learned will be invaluable as I pursue a degree in aerospace engineering.
