CubeSat Mission: From Design to Operation

The current success rate of CubeSat missions, particularly for first-time developers, may discourage non-profit organizations to start new projects. CubeSat development teams may not be able to dedicate the resources that are necessary to maintain Quality Assurance as it is performed for the reliable conventional satellite projects. This paper discusses the structured life-cycle of a CubeSat project, using as a reference the authors' recent experience of developing and operating a 2U CubeSat, called qbee50-LTU-OC, as part of the QB50 mission. This paper also provides a critique of some of the current poor practices and methodologies while carrying out CubeSat projects.