Aerospace Engineering Commons^™

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 …

A Software Defined Radio Communications System For A Small Spacecraft, Michael Hlas, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Marsh

Jeremy Straub

Software defined radios (SDRs) are poised to significantly enhance the future of small spacecraft communications. They allow signal processing to be performed on a computer by software rather than requiring dedicated hardware. The OpenOrbiter SDR (discussed in [1] and refined in [2]) takes data from the flight computer and converts it into an analog signal that is transmitted via the spacecraft antenna. Because the signal processing is done in software, the radio can be easily reconfigured. This process is done in reverse for incoming transmissions, which are received by the SDR and decoded by software. Figures 1 and 2 provide …

Design Of A 1-U Cubesat Structure For The Open Prototype For Educational Nanosats, Benjamin Kading, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Marsh

Jeremy Straub

CubeSats are a class of small satellites that have recently gained significant interest and are being developed and used for engineering test missions, bona fide research and various other applications. A 1-U CubeSat (the orig-inal form factor) has nominal dimensions of 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm and a mass of no more than 1.33 kg [1](however, some integrators are now consistently allow-ing higher mass levels). Due to their small size and the demonstrated ability to successfully use consumer-grade electronics in low-Earth orbit, CubeSats cost sig-nificantly less than larger sized satellites [2]. These re-duced costs, however, are still …

Update On The Progress Of The 1-U Open Cubesat Development, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Marsh

Jeremy Straub

The OpenOrbiter program [1] is developing a low-cost framework for the creation of space-craft [2] by researchers and educators world-wide [3]. In line with the objective of enabling future educational use by others, educational assessment [4, 5] has been a key focus. Sever-al areas were assessed: students were asked what types of benefits they sought from their participation [6], assessment of benefit attain-ment is ongoing. Work on the development of a designs (See Figures 2 and 8) that can be used to build a spacecraft with a cost of under $5,000 [7] using primarily COTS parts and testing (see Figure …

Application Of Collaborative Autonomous Control And The Open Prototype For Educational Nanosats Framework To Enable Orbital Capabilities For Developing Nations, Jeremy Straub, Josh Berk, Anders Nervold, Christoffer Korvald, Donovan Torgerson

Jeremy Straub

Prosperous nations enjoy the benefits of orbital remote sensing data products. The spacecraft that provide this imagery are, predominately, large and expensive, placing them out of reach of most small or developing nations. Small spacecraft, however, represent a new paradigm for remote sensing applications. A cluster of small spacecraft can be used to capture imagery which can be super-resolved to rival the performance of larger and significantly more expensive spacecraft (compared to the whole small spacecraft constellation). Alternately, the group can be spaced to provide higher temporal coverage. This paper presents work on three synergistic topics. First, it covers work …