Initial orbit results from the TUBiX20 platform

Technische Universität Berlin has been active in the field of small satellites for more than 25 years and has successfully developed, built and operated 21 satellites to date. One of the recent developments of the university is TUBiX20, a highly modular microsatellite platform that was designed to support various different mission types. At the moment, three missions of Technische Universität Berlin are based on TUBiX20, namely TechnoSat, TUBIN, and QUEEN. Launched in July 2017, TechnoSat is the first mission to demonstrate the TUBiX20 platform in orbit. TechnoSat's mission is the demonstration of seven technology payloads that include an S-band transmitter and a reaction wheel system. This paper presents initial orbit results of the TechnoSat mission, focusing on the payloads relevant for future TUBiX20 missions. Here, the evolution of the experiments towards increasing complexity from the commissioning phase into manoeuvres that combine the use of several payloads underlines the platform's versatility. Furthermore, a quick adaptation of payloads like the S-band transmitter and the reaction wheel system into regular operations was possible by exploiting the platform's modular architecture. TechnoSat achieved all its mission objectives within the nominal mission time and is now used within its extended mission duration primarily to test and demonstrate capabilities for the upcoming missions. •We introduce a highly modular satellite platform architecture.•The platform's first mission is a 20 kg technology demonstration satellite.•Initial orbit results are presented to showcase the performance of the platform.•Thousands of images are taken to demonstrate attitude pointing and operations.