Technologies, challenges and opportunities for optical CubeSat payloads

CubeSat nanosatellites are a disruptive trend in the satellite market. For scientific and commercial applications, they enable cost-effective missions and significantly reduce the time between mission concept and launch compared to classical large satellites. The field of application for the corresponding optical payloads ranges from earth observation and free space optical communications to interplanetary exploration and exoplanet detection. Since 2000, there is an accelerating increase in CubeSat launches which in return drives up the demand for optical instrument components, especially for dedicated commercial optics. This poster discusses the performance characteristics and existing limitations of optical payloads due to dimensions, weight and power, highlighting exemplary solutions for different types of optical payload instruments. Thereby new concepts like formation flying and synthetic apertures are evaluated regarding their effectiveness. An overview on optical instrument components for different CubeSat applications is given and their limitations and opportunities are identified.