The verification of a spacecraft component’s functionality under microgravity conditions is an important topic for the low-cost development of CubeSat components. The testing and verification of new components is often carried out on technological demonstration missions. To reduce the cost and time required, the verification process can also be undertaken on sounding rockets. To achieve best microgravity conditions, a testing platform must be entirely stabilised. Most sounding rockets are spin stabilised and, therefore, a centrifugal force acting upon the components remains. This force can be eliminated by ejecting the testing platform on a fully stabilised Free Falling Unit. Available attitude control systems are targeted at orbital flights, and therefore act slowly. Such systems measure their attitude control manoeuvres in significantly longer times, which is suboptimal as experiments conducted on Free Falling Units are highly constrained by flight time. Taking these requirements into account, the objective of Project ASTER is to design and test a low-cost, fast acting solution, to stabilise and orientate a free-falling platform in a reduced gravity environment. The results of the project will be published as open source to ensure its future availability to student and low budget research projects.
