Mission Design and Enabling Technologies for a LEO-to-MEO Dual-Phase CubeSat Mission: The BOREALIS Platform
Lorenzo Nardi, Fabio Curti, Stefano Carletta, Parsa Abbasrezaee, Lorenzo Thomas Contessa, A. Di Serafino, Vahid Omrani, Domenico Caputo, Giovanni Palmerini, Nicola Lovecchio, Sahithi Sriramoju, VS Siva Sankaram Emani, Nunzio Burgio, Giulia Petrucci, Riccardo Mazzotti, Mara Mirasoli, Fabio Lorenzini, Matteo Mergé, Augusto Nascetti
Abstract. BOREALIS – Biofilm Onboard Radiation Exposure Assessment Lab In Space – is a 6U CubeSat mission developed under the Italian Space Agency’s ALCOR program. It introduces a dual-phase orbital profile enabling biological experimentation in both Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), making BOREALIS one of the first CubeSat missions to attempt a LEO-to-MEO orbital transfer. This paper focuses on the mission’s engineering innovations that make this transfer feasible, particularly the propulsion subsystem based on a water-fueled pulsed plasma thruster and the Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS), validated through numerical and Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) experiments. Conducted in collaboration between the School of Aerospace Engineering of Rome and the University of Arizona, the tests demonstrated that a commercial ADCS can maintain sub-degree pointing during long-duration thrust operations when integrated within a closed-loop Simulink environment.
Keywords
CubeSat, Orbit Transfer, Biofilm, Propulsion System, ADCS, Space Biology, LEO-to-MEO, Radiation Effects, Model-Based Design, Hardware-in-the-Loop
Published online 7/20/2026, 6 pages
Copyright © 2026 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA
Citation: Lorenzo Nardi, Fabio Curti, Stefano Carletta, Parsa Abbasrezaee, Lorenzo Thomas Contessa, A. Di Serafino, Vahid Omrani, Domenico Caputo, Giovanni Palmerini, Nicola Lovecchio, Sahithi Sriramoju, VS Siva Sankaram Emani, Nunzio Burgio, Giulia Petrucci, Riccardo Mazzotti, Mara Mirasoli, Fabio Lorenzini, Matteo Mergé, Augusto Nascetti, Mission Design and Enabling Technologies for a LEO-to-MEO Dual-Phase CubeSat Mission: The BOREALIS Platform, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 69, pp 930-935, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644904251-164
The article was published as article 164 of the book CEAS – AIDAA Conference 2025
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
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