Verification campaign of small test platform hosting electric propulsion systems

The growing interest of the market in nano-satellites is pushing the technology associated with development of these small platforms Among the enabling technologies, miniaturized electrical propulsion (EP)systems deeply increase the range of missions performed with multi-unit CubeSats (6U+). Actually, the level of readiness of these technologies is still low, due to the lack of effective and safe processes and facilities to verify and validate them before in-orbit demonstration. One of the major issue sis to understand what the mutual impact of an electric propulsion system and the spacecraft technology is, in order to avoid loss of onboard functionalities and anomalies and misbehaviours. The present paper deals with the verification campaign of a versatile test platform based on CubeSat-like technology, able to host a wide range of EP system favouring an effective verification campaign thanks to precise procedures and a proper setup of the facility (the Small Plasma Facility /SPF) of ESA-ESTEC). The platform is equipped with specific sensors and tools, i.e. temperature sensors (NTC), current and voltage sensing circuits, strips of open resistors, magnetometers, silica wafers mounted on the CubeSat faces, and a very precise (24-bit resolution) acquisition system. The objective is to obtain unprecedented information that, integrated with external devices normally used for the verification campaign of propulsion system, e.g. faraday cups and Magnetic Field Mapper, allows to assess the functional behaviour of the integrated system (platform and EP system). The test platform has already been integrated with SPF and the functional test campaign has been successfully performed, demonstrating the test platform is ready for final tests.