  CubeSat satellites are small cube-shaped space platforms that are very
popular among academic, research and start-up communities mostly due to their
reduced mission costs and short development time. This comes with an easy
access to space, which enables high risk missions that would not be feasible
otherwise. Thus, most of the subsystems available for these satellites have
been adapted to a rather fast development methodology. However, thermal control
engineering is still somewhat overlooked due to its complexity and long-term
development characteristics. Moreover, since CubeSat projects often rely in
commercial off-the-shelf components, it is necessary to understand their
necessities in terms of thermal control. The main reason for this is because
these components are not originally designed to operate in the space
environment, and may degrade faster when operated either under too hot or too
cold conditions. In this context, this article presents the results of several
thermal analyses and tests conducted over power amplifiers and
field-programmable gate array devices, commonly used in CubeSat subsystems and
payloads. Passive thermal control methods, mostly based on thermal straps, are
explored as potential thermal control solutions due to their low cost and
development constraints.
