Education Commons^™

Initial Results From The First National Survey Of Student Outcomes From Small Satellite Program Participation, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

This paper presents initial results of the first national / international survey of student participants in CubeSat and other small spacecraft programs. It aims to make portions of the results of the survey available for immediate use by the CubeSat / small spacecraft community prior to the completion of a thorough analysis of the results and consideration of correlating and prospective causation factors for various outcomes.

Design And Implementation Of Satellite Software To Facilitate Future Cubesat Development, Timothy Whitney, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Marsh

Jeremy Straub

The OpenOrbiter project is a campus-wide effort at the University of North Dakota to design and build a low-cost CubeSat-class satellite. The intent is to create a publically- available framework that allows a spacecraft to be built with a parts cost of less than USD $5,000 (excluding mission payload-specific costs). This paper focuses on OpenOrbiter’s software system methodology and implementation.

Current work seeks to create a generalized framework that other CubeSat developers can use directly or alter to suit their mission needs. It discusses OpenOrbiter’s overall design goals with an emphasis on software design. The software architecture is divided into …

Assessment Of Educational Expectations, Outcomes And Benefits From Small Satellite Program Participation, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Marsh

Jeremy Straub

This paper begins to characterize the educational outcomes that can be produced from student participation in a small spacecraft development program. We asked students what benefits they expected to receive from program participation and we asked them, at the end of the semester, what benefits they had received. We also characterized student performance through the use of post-participation Likert-like scale questions and the use of a widely-used questionnaire for assessing student research participation outcomes. We compare benefit expectation and attainment, characterize the level of benefits received across multiple types of participation and assess the effect of program participation on subject-specific …

An Overview Of The Hardware Designs Of The Openorbiter Program, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

This poster provides an overview of the hardware designs for the OpenOrbiter small spacecraft, including both missions in our two-phase mission design. The first mission will use a limited-configuration, limited-scope CubeSat which will develop and demonstrate UND’s capability to develop and launch a small spacecraft. It will also serve to inform the second mission through problems detected with included components, so that these can be corrected before the more robust phase-two mission is launched. The phase-two mission will feature the complete Open Prototype for Educational NanoSats (OPEN) design and will house a visual-light camera which will serve to collect imagery …

An Overview Of Current Progress On The Openorbiter Project, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

This poster presents an overview of the work that has occurred over the last year on the OpenOrbiter project. The new two-phase ‘experience-building’ mission strategy is presented and discussed and overviews of the hardware/software configurations applicable to each mission are presented. Highlights from recent work across all areas of the project are included. An overview of student involvement over the course of the last year is also presented. Also discussed are the future plans for the project and a look forward to the next year and what progress and deliverables are expected. The pathway to an orbital launch and the …

Openorbiter Operating System Components: Development Of Software For Communications And Power Management, Michael Hlas, Calvin Littlebina, Dayln Limesand, Christoffer Korvald, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Marsh

Jeremy Straub

This poster presents details on two areas of the development of the OpenOrbiter Operating Software, communications and power management. Communications are an essential part of any satellite. Communications allow us to send commands and receive information from the satellite. However communications presents us with some unique challenges. The satellite is orbiting the earth about every 90 minutes at very high speeds making it difficult to track it through the sky. We also have a very limited window when the satellite is overhead to communicate with it. Bandwidth is also very limited so what is sent and received during that time …

Educational Benefits To Participants In Small Spacecraft Development, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

A key focus of the OpenOrbiter project has been identifying possible sources of educational benefit to student participants and ascertaining whether they have been received. To this end, we’ve asked participants what benefits they hope to attain, determined whether they attained them and measured increases in skills and abilities over the period of participation in the project. This poster provides an overview of all of the educational evaluation work performed to-date with regards to the OpenOrbiter project. It considers both the benefit of the particular project as well as the benefits of small spacecraft development work, in general, across a …

The Use Of The Roofsat For Computer Science And Engineering Education, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Marsh

Jeremy Straub

This poster presents an overview of a tool that has been created to provide students with real-world experience in the design, development and operation of control and scientific mission software for a cyber-physical system. The ROOFSAT, developed at UND, is a low-cost analog for a small spacecraft (though in many ways these capabilities also enable similar UAV work). The ROOFSAT was constructed with approximately $1,500 generously provided by the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences out of commercially-available parts. It includes multiple cameras, a pan-tilt mount and the same space-qualified computer hardware which has been used on both spacecraft …

Openorbiter Small Spacecraft Development Program Educational Benefits, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

No abstract provided.

Educational Outcomes From The Openorbiter Small Spacecraft Development Program, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

The OpenOrbiter program [1] is developing a low-cost framework for the creation of space-craft by researchers and educators worldwide [8]. In addition to the technical objectives, ed-ucational assessment [2, 3] has also been a key focus. Students working on development of the spacecraft [4] were asked what types of benefits they sought from their participation [5]. The assessment of the attainment of these benefits is ongoing, in conjunction with continued development in pursuit of the crea-tion of a set of designs that can be used to build a spacecraft with a cost of under $5,000 [13] .

Openorbiter Combined Software Work Breakdown Structure, Jeremy Straub, Timothy Whitney, Tyler Leben, Kelton Karboviak, Zach Maguire, Christoffer Korvald, Scott Kerlin

Jeremy Straub

As part of CSCI 297, students created work breakdown structures for different areas of the OpenOrbiter project’s software groups. In CSCI 207, they learned about all aspects of project management via experiential learning. They acted as project management ‘consultants’ to the OpenOrbiter software teams. To facilitate the creation of the work breakdown structures, they interviewed team leads, attended team meetings and discussed current progress and needs with members of the teams. In some cases, they collected additional information from reference sources and/or spoke with other teams which would be the ‘customer’ of a particular area of the software system. These …

Increasing National Space Engineering Productivity And Educational Opportunities Via Intrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship And Innovation, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

Research and educational efforts related to space engineering or requiring access to space face significant startup costs. The cost of developing a 1-U (10 cm × 10 cm × 11 cm) CubeSat from scratch can be approximately $250,000. Those buying a kit must pay amortized vendor development costs on a per-mission basis, creating a lower per-mission barrier. Kit users are also constrained by being unable to make changes to vendor subsystems without incurring substantial redevelopment costs or vendor charges. The Open Prototype for Educational NanoSats (OPEN) is changing this by providing freely available design documents for a 1-U CubeSat class …

A Curriculum-Integrated Small Spacecraft Program For Interdisciplinary Education, Jeremy Straub, Anders Nervold, Josh Berk

Jeremy Straub

Space generates inspiration, aspiration, and passion in many students, traits that are often lacking in the traditional college classroom. By utilizing a meaningful space project with a tangible product, which serves a valuable purpose in the curriculum, instructors can generate passion in their students with regards to the topics being explored. Additionally, it can fuel interest in aerospace science and commerce, guiding more students towards valuable STEM degrees and job opportunities, which can lead to future growth and fresh blood in the aging aerospace employee pool.

OpenOrbiter is a student-run research project at the University of North Dakota that can …

Openorbiter: Analysis Of A Student-Run Space Program, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

Students at the University of North Dakota, as part of faculty-mentored teams in a student-lead program, are working to broaden participation in humanity's exploration of space. The OpenOrbiter Small Spacecraft Development Initiative (OSSDI) is demonstrating two complementary paradigm-changers. First, the initiative facilitates student involvement in all aspects of a space program, without the preconceptions present in established space activities. Second, it is demonstrating a low-cost framework for small spacecraft development. These combined activities are poised to demonstrate a new way forward for space exploration: combined, they allow risk-taking exuberance and a cost of entry that makes risk-taking exuberance acceptable, even …

Openorbiter: A Student Space Program, Jeremy Straub, Joshua Berk, Christoffer Korvald

Jeremy Straub

OpenOrbiter is a student-conceived, student-run small spacecraft program operating at the University of North Dakota. It involves students from numerous departments including both STEM (computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, space studies) and non-STEM (business, entrepreneurship, education) disciplines. The program is comprised of 19 student-lead, faculty-mentored groups focusing on all areas of spacecraft design and fabrication.

This paper presents the OpenOrbiter space program as a model for emulation. It focuses specifically on the utility of participation for students and faculty in the Computer Science discipline, while briefly summarizing the motivation for participants in other disciplines. These benefits include learning the …

The Development Of Operating Software For An Open Small Spacecraft, Donovan Torgerson, Christoffer Korvald, Jeremy Straub, Joshua Berk

Jeremy Straub

The OpenOrbiter program aims to design and demonstrate the Open Prototype for Educational NanoSats (OPEN) framework. OPEN reduces small spacecraft development costs by making the design plans freely available to any institution that wishes to use them. OpenOrbiter will demonstrate the viability of this design via being launched into low-Earth orbit (LEO).

This poster presents the initial design work for the Operating Software for the OpenOrbiter spacecraft. Operating software efficiency is extremely important due to the limited level of communication with ground-based operators and limited onboard power production. The operating software performs task scheduling, constraint compliance management, and schedule optimization …

An Open Prototype For Educational Nanosats: Increasing National Space Engineering Productivity Via A Low-Cost Platform, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

The Open Prototype for Educational NanoSats (OPEN) is poised to allow a dramatic increase in the number of students, worldwide, that have the opportunity to participate in hands-on spacecraft development. It is designed to facilitate the formation of CubeSat development programs via providing a publically-available set of spacecraft design documents, implementation and testing plans. These documents should allow the creation of a 1-U CubeSat with a parts budget of approximately $ 5,000. This allows spacecraft development to be incorporated in regular curriculum and supported from teaching (as opposed to research) funds.

The Openorbiter Program: Intrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship And Innovation, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

The University of North Dakota’s OpenOrbiter program is providing an interdisciplinary learning experience for students from numerous STEM and non-STEM fields. OpenOrbiter allows student participants to experience not just the engineering and other technical aspects of the space program, it also involves students from diverse, non-STEM fields (including communications, entrepreneurship, management, visual arts, public policy and English). Traditional STEM fields such as mathematics, physics, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science and technology are also well represented. Students from specially programs at the University of North Dakota including atmospheric sciences, Earth System Sciences and Policy, aviation, Space Studies and Air Traffic …

The International Trafficking In Arms Regulations: Precluding Innovation In Academic Spacecraft Engineering — Or Are They?, Jeremy Straub, Joe Vacek

Jeremy Straub

Government regulations and uncertainty about their enforcement can be a significant barrier to innovation. In business, it is undesirable to consume time and other resources developing a product that cannot be sold or which requires navigating significant bureaucracy for each sale. In academ-ia, where limited funding is available prior to the submission of a grant pro-posal and receipt of an award, proposal-stage compliance costs can derail a project long before it begins. This paper reviews the International Traffick-ing in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and their impact on spacecraft research in academia, private research labs and industry. It reviews the exemptions available, …

Risk Analysis & Management In Student-Centered Spacecraft Development Projects, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Fevig, James Casler, Om Yadav

Jeremy Straub

Student involvement in any engineering project introduces an element of risk. This risk is particularly pronounced with small spacecraft projects, as a failure of the spacecraft on-orbit can result in a complete failure of the mission. However, student involvement in these projects is critical to allow research aims to be accomplished, in a university setting, and to train the next generation of spacecraft engineering professionals. The nature of risks posed by student involvement is discussed and a framework for assessing and mitigating these risks presented.