Naval Postgraduate School Solar Cell Array Tester

Educating space professionals is an expensive endeavor. The use of technologies such as CubeSats can cut the cost giving space professionals real world experience in satellite design, testing, integration and operations. The Naval Postgraduate School-Solar Cell Array Tester (NPS-SCAT) will be the first of what may be many CubeSats developed by the Space Systems Academic Group, Small Satellite Laboratory. This thesis analyzes the NPS-SCAT program from the program manager’s point of view and provides an overview of the development of the program from an un-qualified Engineering Design Unit (EDU) to a fully qualified EDU. Also included in this thesis is a description of the subsystems and full cost analysis that covers the total costs from concept to flight unit.