About 75% of the total product cost is determined in the early design phase, which means that the possibilities to affect costs are relatively small when the design phase is completed. For companies, it is therefore vital to conduct reliable cost estimates in the early design phase, when selecting between different design choices. When conducting a cost estimate there are many uncertainties. The aim with this study is therefore to explore how uncertainties regarding product cost can be considered when estimating product cost and how expert’s knowledge can be integrated within cost estimation. A case study has been conducted within the aerospace industry at the company GKN Aerospace Sweden (GAS) in Trollhättan, from which a model to estimate product cost has been developed. The model is developed for space turbines, but can with modifications be used for other products. Space turbines are highly advanced products, produced in small batches with complex manufacturing processes and high costs. Because of the heavy capital investment, long lead times and high risks, cost estimates become very important, which made GAS suitable for the case study. The new cost estimation model (NCEM) developed is a combination between intuitive, analogical and analytical cost estimation techniques. Product cost at GAS is built up by the following cost elements; raw material, purchased parts, material surcharge, manufacturing cost, manufacturing surcharge, outsourced operations, method support, delivery cost, warranty and scrap, which are studied more in depth. The material cost is estimated based on historical data and a list of previous purchased alloys is created. The manufacturing cost is determined more in detail where the cost for each operation is estimated, based on operation time, amount of removed material or welding speed. The method support cost is estimated based on a study of an internal prognosis where the amount of time from each discipline needed to support the product is determined. Included in the NCEM is also a risk assessment. The main insights from this study is that transparency is vital when estimating product cost. It is important to state what assumptions that have been made. Breaking down the product cost into smaller units and create awareness about the cost drivers will identify risks and reduce uncertainness. Experts possess a great deal of knowledge about cost drivers and should be integrated when estimating product cost.

This report addresses a project conducted at Saab Aeronautics during the spring of 2018. The goal of the project was to investigate aircraft weight estimations in the conceptual design phase. The work was divided into two major parts: finding new weight estimation techniques and implementing an existing technique called the Berry Weight Estimation in to the Pacelab APD software. Several weight estimation techniques were found during an extensive literature review but in the end, only one was chosen for further investigation. The chosen technique was the NASA Wing Weight Build-Up which proposed calculations for wing weights based on aircraft statistics. It contained material data tables for determining so called K-factors that were used to essentially scale the individual wing weight formulas. The data tables did not include K-factors up to a load factor of 9 which was a requirement from Saab. Extrapolations of the material data tables were done to approximate the missing values. The NASA wing weight build-up showed promising results with little deviation from the actual wing weight for a few chosen aircraft. This weight estimation technique was consequently chosen as a worthy candidate for a future implementation in the Pacelab APD software. The task of implementing the Berry Weight Estimation in Pacelab APD was divided into a fuselage- and a wing part. This was done to ease the implementation since it would resemble the original description of the method. The wing and fuselage weights were both calculated in two steps. The first step was to calculate a gross shell weight. This is the weight of an idealized structure without cut-outs or imperfections. The second step was to add so called weight penalties for various components within the wing or fuselage. Typical aircraft components had associating weight penalty functions described in the Berry Weight Estimation. Most of the implemented calculations used Pacelab APD to get involved parameters automatically. However, some of the needed parameters had to be user specified for the implemented Berry Weight Estimation to work. Once the implementation task was finished, several sensitivity studies were made to establish a perception about the involved parameters impact on the Berry Weight Estimation results. The new implementation gave benefits compared with the Berry Weight Estimation in Bex. One of these was the ability to perform extensive trade- and sensitivity studies. The sensitivity studies gave verdicts on the most influencing parameters of the implemented code and guide lines on future improvements of the calculations. These sensitivity studies show, among other things, that is recommended to increase the number of wing and fuselage stations significantly in order to get a converged result for the Berry Weight Estimation.

Satellites commonly use onboard digital cameras, called star trackers. A star tracker determines the satellite's attitude, i.e. its orientation in space, by comparing star positions with databases of star patterns. In this thesis, I investigate the possibility of extending the functionality of star trackers to also detect the presence of resident space objects (RSO) orbiting the earth. RSO consist of both active satellites and orbital debris, such as inactive satellites, spent rocket stages and particles of different sizes. I implement and compare nine detection algorithms based on image analysis. The input is two hundred synthetic images, consisting of a portion of the night sky with added random Gaussian and banding noise. RSO, visible as faint lines in random positions, are added to half of the images. The algorithms are evaluated with respect to sensitivity (the true positive rate) and specificity (the true negative rate). Also, a difficulty metric encompassing execution times and computational complexity is used. The Laplacian of Gaussian algorithm outperforms the rest, with a sensitivity of 0.99, a specificity of 1 and a low difficulty. It is further tested to determine how its performance changes when varying parameters such as line length and noise strength. For high sensitivity, there is a lower limit in how faint the line can appear. Finally, I show that it is possible to use the extracted information to roughly estimate the orbit of the RSO. This can be accomplished using the Gaussian angles-only method. Three angular measurements of the RSO positions are needed, in addition to the times and the positions of the observer satellite. A computer architecture capable of image processing is needed for an onboard implementation of the method.

As technology advances, the possibility of using satellite data and observations to aid inagricultural activities comes closer to reality. Swedish farmers can apply for subsidies for their land in which crop management and animal grazing occurs, and every year thousands of manual follow-up checks are conducted by Svenska Jordbruksverket (Swedish Board of Agriculture) to validate the farmers’ claims to financial aid. RISE (Research Institutes of Sweden) is currently researching a replacement for the manual follow-up checks using an automated process with optical satellite observations from primarily the ESA-made satellite constellation Sentinel-2, and secondarily the radar observations of the Sentinel-1 constellation. The optical observations from Sentinel-2 are greatly hindered by the presence of weather on the Earth’s atmosphere and lack of sunlight, but the radar-based observations of Sentinel-1 are able to penetrate any weather conditions entirely independently from sunlight. By using the optical index NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) which is strongly correlated with plant chlorophyll, and the radar index RVI (Radar Vegetation Index), classifications on animal grazing activities are sought to be made. Dynamic Time Warping and hierarchical clustering are used to analyse and attempt to make classifications on the two selected datasets of sizes 959 and 20 fields. Five experiments were conducted to analyse the observational data from mainly Sentinel-2, but also Sentinel-1. The results were inconclusive and were unable to perform successful classifications primarily on the 959 fields large dataset. An indication is given in one of the experiments, performed on the smaller dataset of 20 fields, that classification is indeed possible by using mean valued NDVI time series. However, it is difficult to draw conclusions due to the small size of the 20 fields large dataset. To validate any possible methods classification a larger dataset must be used.

The demand of space applications has been increasing over the years. This has derivedin new satellites structures that required from precise and robust control management.The satellite design is evolving towards the development of lighter structures. The combinationof lighter structures with precise and robust control has arisen the problem ofstructure vibration control. The control design of structures with large appendages likeantennas, booms or solar panels has become a challenge. The flexible dynamics of theappendages needs to be considered when performing the attitude analysis of the satellite,since these parts can be easily excited by the environment perturbations such us gravity,gravity gradient or solar wind. The objective of these research project is to develop ahigh-fidelity model plant of a satellite with flexible panels and review different systemidentification techniques used to observe the states of the system. The equations of themodel are reviewed and the model is verified against a multi-body software, Adams. Thesensors and actuators are selected and modelled for the control of the rigid body and theobservation of the rigid and flexible body. For the implementation of the flexible structureobservations a technique based in Genetic Algorithm is applied for optimal sensor location.Finally, different system identification techniques are reviewed for the identificationof modal parameters and rigid body parameters. The results illustrate the performanceof the model and how the different system identification techniques are performed whenobserving the model states.

The joint European Space Agency and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency mission Comet Interceptor seeks to perform a flyby of a Small Solar System Body (SSSB), through use of a multi-element spacecraft. It comprises a primary spacecraft and two subspacecraft, the latter of which will encounter the intercepted object at a small enough distance that its end-of-life might occur at an impact of either the object itself or its potential coma. The Optical Periscopic Imager for Comets (OPIC) is an instrument implemented on one of these small probes which will generate monochromatic images during the encounter. Given a limited data budget before the possible impact, there is a need for data prioritization to ensure that only the most scientifically relevant data is collected. To enable this, algorithms for autonomously cropping an object nucleus from an image were developed during this thesis work. As the computational capabilities of OPIC are limited, the algorithms were required to be of low computational complexity. Additionally, given that the close environment of SSSB in general and comets in particular often exhibit considerable quantities of gas and dust which can generate cluttering in images, the algorithms developed were required to be resistant to noise. Three image cropping algorithms were developed with varying computational complexities. These were tested for cropping accuracy and relative execution times on data from both previous space missions as well as simulated photorealistic images. All three algorithms were able to properly find a bounding box of an object nucleus and any of its significant plumes. The accuracy in cropping correctness of the region borders generated increased with the computational complexity of the algorithms.

The aim of this thesis is to look at the possibility for SSC, Swedish Space Corporation, to build a cost-effective mobile rocket launcher to be used for their most common sounding rockets. Having a mobile rocket launcher will give SSC the possibility to not only expand their own line of launchers but more importantly giving them the opportunity to launch rockets outside their own base. To ease transportation of the launcher it is required to fit in a 40ft container. This requirement is the major limitation during the design phase. To keep the cost down, emphasis will be put on trying to find solutions with commercial products. Concepts were developed during three phases and after presenting the concepts to involved personnel, feedback was given and the concept(s) were developed further. The third and final phase contain the chosen concept and suggestions are given regarding future work to be done before it can be manufactured.

With the launch of the first CubeSat a trend of easy access to Low Earth Orbit was started. Today many educational institutes around the world design, build and operate CubeSats for educational as well as scientific purposes. This Master thesis work presents designs and development in hardware and software to achieve a flexible ground segment at the Luleå University of Technology Space Campus in Kiruna, Sweden. The existing ground station is adapted to support more frequencies and modes of operation to enable future nanosatellite projects at the university easy access to space communication. New equipment is procured and installed with existing equipment in a new location using a 19 inch rack. The thesis presents a ground segment design using software-defined radio to promote flexibility and adaptability. Software development for the ground station is carried out together with Remos Space Systems a start-up at the Arctic Business Incubator that is developing a commercial ground station software. Furthermore a brief analysis of establishing a S-band receive-only ground station at the university is conducted and a trade-off analysis regarding mission control software is made. The thesis lays the foundation and highlights future development needs for the Space Campus ground station to become operational again.

The magnetic cleanliness of a spacecraft during magnetic measurements is an important aspect in the design of many space science missions. The adequate reduction or removal of the spacecraft's magnetic disturbance plays a vital role in allowing the ambient magnetic field to be measured with the required accuracy. There are three main approaches to reduce the impact of the spacecraft's magnetic disturbance on the final magnetic measurement, with each approach imposing its own set of changes and constraints on the spacecraft. In turn these changes and constraints introduce additional complexity and cost to the system design. The required changes in the spacecraft's mission profile and configuration also need to be factored in during the design phase of a spacecraft, but cannot be avoided if high quality measurements are desired.  One of these approaches is the use of a magnetic cleanliness programme, and such programmes have a long history of successful use on large satellite missions.CubeSats have become increasingly technically capable and have in recent years begun to undertake scientific missions with challenging sensitivity requirements, including for magnetic measurements. The small size of the CubeSat form factor poses some unique challenges to the implementation of magnetic cleanliness techniques, but are also in increased need of limiting the residual magnetic moment when compared to large satellites. This thesis details the early phases of the magnetic cleanliness programme on the FORESAIL-2 science mission. Nine magnetic cleanliness requirements on the FORESAIL-2 satellite platform were derived from the FORESAIL-2 measurement and instrument requirements. A simple magnetic model was established, the results of which were used to propose a configuration of spacecraft subsystems. The resulting preliminary configuration of subsystems reduced the effective magnetic field of the REPE payload at the sensor by 352pT, 30.1%, when compared to the worst-performing configuration. Subsequently an improved model, utilising RSS analysis, was created. Combined with updated location information for each subsystem, defined using the proposed configuration, this second model yielded an estimated magnetic field of 2710pT at the reference point. The results of the second model were also used to identify the CDE payload and the TT&C subsystem as potentially problematic from a magnetic cleanliness perspective. A list of ferromagnetic materials was compiled, and a total mass of 453.72g of ferromagnetic materials was estimated. The work presented in this thesis is expected to form the basis of FORESAIL-2's continued magnetic cleanliness programme throughout the design and integration phases of the project.  For example, the improved model could be extended to include the estimated magnetic dipole moment's of each subsystem. Additionally, the inventories of materials, currents, and frequencies established as part of this thesis can be maintained throughout the FORESAIL-2's development cycle, and used to update the estimated total magnetic field of the spacecraft platform.

New Space is a phrase used to describe the expanding commercialization into the areas of space, for instance the Low Earth Orbit at approximately 500 km altitude. This is due to the decrease in cost as the satellites are becoming smaller and the transport vehicles cheaper. This reduction of cost provide the opportunity for industry and researchers tosend up customized equipment to orbit with standardized smaller satellites, such as the nanosatellites. Many parts of the nanosatellites system are commercially available but some subsystems are dependent on the situation. One of which is the satellite to satellite communication, referred to as Inter-Satellite Link (ISL). This thesis aims To evaluate the feasibility of asystem that allow for ISL capability and the basic operations of a satellite. Two hypothetical mission designs, Earth Observation and Global Coverage, were used to simulate the restrictions and requirements of the subsystems together with Commercial Of the Shelf (COTS) equipment to consider the satellite system as a whole. The major principles of the Radio Frequency (RF) communication system and their low level components are investigated and discussed. The scope of this thesis were to present and evaluate the high system level of the satellite. Thus the results and discussion describe a theoretical system performance that could be achieved with suggestions of low level components and system configuration. Besides from the communication subsystem this thesis also includes theory of mission design, the satellite subsystems and external interactions to describe how it all affects the design work of the communication system. Conclusion of this work offers a versatile preliminary system design that is theoretically capable of limited ISL communications. Furthermore this thesis include the fundamental principles of the satellite system that can be used for further work or alternative mission designs.