Alec Guay, the two-year Perlan intern, made cubesats in Perlan 2 his collegiate senior engineering project. He flew to California for some hands on design and fabrication. The impetus to this project was threefold. We wanted a better rack to hold the cubesats. We need more battery power in the Perlan 2 for longer flights and we wanted to move the center of gravity more aft.
So the lightweight cube sat box could be moved somewhere forward, allowing the much heavier current 100 amp battery to be repositioned in that more aft spot. The new better insulated battery box for the 100 amp Battle Born battery would go just ahead of the BRS emergency parachute. But the new additional 50 amp battery would go in the original battery spot under the wing spars. It will be inside a new insulated box also. In the photos the wing spars are represented by pieces of lumber. So where could the cubesats go?
Greg and Alec figured out that the “ceiling area” of the science bay was not used. So they designed a shelf that would easily take 3 cubesats in line. This is important since many university cubesat projects now are 1.5 or 2 times original height of 10 cm. Perlan Soars High! Jackie
