Thermal Modeling and Testing of the Edison Demonstration of Smallsat Networks Project

NASA's Edison program is intending to launch the Edison Demonstration of Smallsat Networks (EDSN) project, a swarm of 8 1.5U cubesats in the fall of 2014 to demonstrate intra-swarm communications and multi-point in situ space physics data acquisition. Due to late changes in the duty cycles of various components, potential overheating issues appeared. In addition, it was determined that capacity loss due to the coldness of the batteries was unacceptable, so mitigation was required. This paper will discuss the thermal modeling, testing, and results of the EDSN mission.