Life time analysis of Chinese AoXiang-1 cubesat of lower thermosphere research

AoXiang-1 of Northwestern Polytechnical University is one of the 50 CubeSats in the European Union's 7^th Framework project "An international network of 50 double CubeSats for multi-point, in-situ, long-duration measurements in the lower thermosphere and for re-entry research". It will carry many kinds of atmosphere sensors to detect the neutral particles, ion particles, atmospheric drag, etc. This article analyzes the main factors that affect the orbit life of AoXiang-1 in the lower thermosphere. It uses different launch months and atmosphere models to analyze and simulate the lifetime of the CubeSat. The result is that for the same launch time but different atmosphere models or for the same atmosphere model but different launch times, the lifetime is different. The lifetime varies from 90 to 120 days. As all 50 double CubeSats in QB50 have nearly the same mass and as all 50 double CubeSats have the same orbit height and the same orbit inclination, the research of this paper is very important to the CubeSat network lifetime estimation, mission plan and its re-entry time estimation.