The open prototype for educational NanoSats: Fixing the other side of the small satellite cost equation

TLDR

Government‑supported nano‑sat launch programs and emerging commercial services are lowering launch costs, yet the design and construction of CubeSats remains a costly and complex hurdle. This paper introduces the Open Prototype for Educational NanoSats (OPEN), a free, publicly available platform aimed at reducing the costs and risks of educational, government, and commercial nano‑satellite development. OPEN offers free, public‑domain reference plans—including engineering schematics, CAD files, construction and test instructions, and ancillary materials—to guide the building, testing, and operation of a versatile, low‑cost CubeSat‑form‑factor satellite.

Abstract

Government supported nano-satellite launch programs and emerging commercial small satellite launch services are reducing the cost of access to space for educational and other CubeSat projects. The cost and complexity of designing and building these satellites remains a vexing complication for many would be CubeSat aspirants. The Open Prototype for Educational NanoSats (OPEN), a proposed nano-satellite development platform, is described in this paper. OPEN endeavors to reduce the costs and risks associated with educational, government and commercial nano-satellite development. OPEN provides free and publicly available plans for building, testing and operating a versatile, low-cost satellite, based on the standardized CubeSat form-factor. OPEN consists of public-domain educational reference plans, complete with engineering schematics, CAD files, construction and test instructions as well as ancillary reference materials relevant to satellite building and operation. By making the plan, to produce a small but capable spacecraft freely available, OPEN seeks to lower the barriers to access on the other side (non-launch costs) of the satellite cost equation.