TASEC-Lab: A COTS-based CubeSat-like university experiment for characterizing the convective heat transfer in stratospheric balloon missions

The Thermal Analysis Support and Environment Characterization Laboratory (TASEC-Lab) is an experiment designed, integrated, and tested in the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid by bachelor's, master's and doctoral students. The aim of this project is to study the convection heat transfer, the thermal environment and the balloon dynamics during the ascent and float phases of a stratospheric balloon launched from the León (Spain) airfield on 16th, July 2021. TASEC-Lab has been designed following the CubeSat philosophy using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components. It consists of an aluminium structure of 130 × 130 × 330 mm3 with three compartments where the Electrical Power Subsystem, the Electronics, and the Heat Transfer Laboratory, are located. In addition, it carries a cup anemometer to be tested at the low-pressure conditions at high altitude to provide the relative speed of the balloon-gondola system in order to characterize the dynamics and the forced convection heat transfer. In this paper, the TASEC-Lab design is detailed as well as the different development phases considered in a university environment where all tasks were carried out by students, with the technical support of the research staff of the Instituto Universitario de Microgravedad “Ignacio da Riva” (IDR) and the group of Sistemas de Tiempo Real y Arquitectura de Servicios Telemáticos (STRAST). •Stratospheric experiment designed by engineering students in a university project.•A low-cost manufacturing of a CubeSat-like experiment is achieved using COTS.•Description of an experiment for characterizing the convective heat transfer on stratospheric balloon missions.•Description of analyses and tests performed to guarantee a successful flight.•Preliminary results and some lessons learnt after the flight are presented.