Aerospace Engineering Commons^™

The Base Got Hit: Interpersonal Communication Strategies In High-Stress Space Projects, Allison E. Barnes, Avery G. Barriga, John F. Connolly

Small Satellite Conference

The AggieSat Laboratory (AGSL) is a student-driven laboratory with 17 years of space systems experience and flight heritage. As AGSL prepares to launch several space systems over the next three years, reflecting on lessons learned from past projects is critical to improving future reliability and execution. This survey analyzes communication dynamics in past CubeSat and ISS payload projects, specifically within the high-stress phases of Assembly, Integration, and Test (AI&T) and Mission Operations, where a combination of young engineers and high-stakes decision-making can often lead to compounding, avoidable technical anomalies.

This survey identifies specific interpersonal strategies to mitigate human error, including …

Vision-Based Pose Estimation Of A Low-Inertia Robotic Capture Arm, Dane Groves, Willem Jordaan

Small Satellite Conference

The development of CubeSat-integrated robotic arms has expanded the possibilities for In-Orbit Assembly, Repair, and Servicing (OARS). A low-inertia robotic capture arm has been designed previously using remote actuation¹. In the context of CubeSats, this allows heavy actuators to be placed in the base of the CubeSat and lightweight, slender links can be connected to form an arm. This design, depicted in Figure 1, allows for a robotic arm with a low moment of inertia.

The limited 6.5 mm link profile prevents the integration of high-resolution joint encoders, motivating the use of an alternative state estimation technique. This …

Processor And Sensor Interfacing On Fpga For Stp-H12-Vantage Space Mission, Christopher Brubaker, Alan D. George

Small Satellite Conference

Previous SHREC Missions

• STP-H5-CSP – Demonstration of CSP and hybrid COTS + rad-hard architecture
• STP-H6-SSIVP – Parallel and distributed computing with multiple CSPs
• STP-H7-CASPR – Onboard processing with next-gen sensors and apps

STP-H12-VANTAGE

• Visual And Neuromorphic Tracking And Geosensing Experiment
• Correlation of neuromorphic and visual sensor data
• Advancing usage of COTS SoMs supplemented with rad-hard monitoring and watchdog circuitry

Squidsat: A Modular, Open-Source 3u Cubesat Bus For Low-Cost Cubesat Missions, Aaron Bournias, Joseph Dukowitz, Mark Jaber, Tyler Field, Micah Nguyen, Koowum Joshi, Noah Campos, Daphne Riordan, Ryan La Ra, Jonathan Luse, Joshua Sink, Tyler Nielsen, Ricardo Ontivaros, Michael Goryll, Joe Dubois

Small Satellite Conference

CubeSat launches continue to increase yearly, yet over 51% of missions from 2002–2016 failed. Primary faults were often due to power, mechanical, or design issues. Costs still remain high in a market driven by expensive flight-heritage hardware with proprietary designs. In order to counteract such costly practice, Sun Devil Satellite Lab (SDSL) at ASU has developed an open-source, modular 3U CubeSat bus built for low cost reliability. Unlike other bus architectures, SquidSat distributes control across independent microcontrollers linked via a CAN bus. CAN is commanded by the OBC but is capable of independent operation for fault isolation and easier testing. …

Onboard Ai At The Orbital Edge: A Mission Debrief From Stp-H7-Caspr, Evan W. Gretok, Linus Silbernagel, Diego Wildenstein, Michael J. Cannizzaro, Seth Roffe, Alan D. George

Small Satellite Conference

Goals: Enable autonomous Earth observation and onboard sensor data processing with novel compute

Motivations: Growing numbers of spacecraft demand autonomy in operation and data collection

Challenges: Harsh radiation and thermal environment of space over four-year mission lifetime

A Comparative Analysis Of Radio Frequency And Optical Inter-Satellite Link Communications For Leo Mega-Constellations, Alexa Houck, Suryansh Aryan, Kevin Schroeder, Samantha Kenyon

Small Satellite Conference

SpaceNet design  

Software-based testbed for simulating large satellite networks, specifically LEO-based constellations to analyze network behavior, connectivity, routing, and overall communication.  

• Phase one focuses on connectivity and routing: Given the topology and link availability over time, how does my network behave? 
• Phase two focuses on network emulation: Given the topology and link availability over time, how does my network behave? 

Arcsecond-Level Pointing Accuracy In A Cubesat: Development And Verification Of The High-Precision Pointing System For The Cubespec Mission, Leonardo Peri

Small Satellite Conference

Mission and objectives 

CubeSpec is a 12U CubeSat mission designed to demonstrate high-resolution stellar spectroscopy from a small, low-cost space platform. 

Its scientific objectives require the payload line-of-sight to remain stable within a few arcseconds. This is beyond the capability of conventional CubeSat Attitude Determination & Control Systems (ADCS). 

To meet this challenge, CubeSpec uses a dual-stage pointing architecture: the spacecraft ADCS provides coarse body pointing, while a High-Precision Pointing Platform applies fast, precise corrections directly to the payload line-of-sight.

Snack Protocol For Reliable High-Throughput Data Transfer On Mtu-Constrained Low-Cost Uhf Radios, Samantha Mallari, Dennis Sarsozo, Miguel Nunes

Small Satellite Conference

• Student CubeSat missions using sub-$100 UHF radios are constrained by small packet sizes, making standard protocols (e.g., TCP, CFDP) too overhead-intensive for payload downlinks.  
• We developed a Selective Negative Acknowledgement (SNACK)-based protocol for the Artemis CubeSat Kit bus to support reliable 160 × 120 LWIR thermal image transmission for the CubeSats for Climate Change Monitoring (C3M) mission  
• A 45-byte SNACK bitmap acknowledges up to 360 packet fragments, minimizing retransmission overhead.  
• Field tests from 5 m to 1.6 km achieved 72.2 kbps peak throughput and ≥98.7% final data integrity.

Austronauts 3u Cubesat Space Weather Payloads Proposal, Tiana Pendray

Small Satellite Conference

CubeSats are becoming increasingly prominent due to their accessibility, affordability and versatility. An emerging field of satellite application is the monitoring of ionospheric space weather, made possible by sensitive instruments that collect data on plasma potential, temperature and ion density. These parameters vary due to changing solar activity in the form of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and solar flares, which can have severe impacts on satellite navigation systems, radio communication networks and orbital estimations. The AUStronauts team at the University of New South Wales is developing a 3U CubeSat with two space weather payloads – an Electrodynamic Tether (EDT) and …

Autonomous Microelectronics See Payload For Validating Terrestrial Predictions In Space, Michael A. Blacconiere, Isaac Hudson, John W. Burgoon, Terrance Sacks, Spencer Westfall, Sajal Islam, Davidson Juhke, George Randel, Jared Harvey, Merek Chertkow, Daniel Loveless

Small Satellite Conference

The radiation environment in space is complex and time-varying, causing major risks for microelectronic applications. Terrestrial radiation sources are used to characterize devices before missions to predict in-orbit error rates. However, these predictions are rarely validated in deployment. The payload, designed by IU CREATE and The Radiation Team, the IUB-SAT-1, integrates IU’s RadFX-IC and commercial SRAMs with well-characterized terrestrial radiation responses into a modular payload to collect on-orbit radiation-response data. Results will refine radiation error-rate models and improves confidence in deploying advanced microelectronics to radiation-rich space environments.

Bit-Flip Sensitivity And Selective Fp32 Protection For Onboard Neural Networks In Flight Software: In-Place Secded Healing Of An Fp32 Weight Buffer Inside Nasa Cfs, Ryan Goodman, Carson Cramer, Braden Eichmeier, Emily Gerber, Christopher Roscoe

Small Satellite Conference

Smallsat missions increasingly deploy neural networks on COTS processors. In orbit, a charged particle striking such a device can flip a single bit of memory, a single event upset (SEU). An upset in a network weight raises no fault condition: the network continues to run, returns incorrect values, and the control loop downstream acts on them. 

The standard cFS response to memory corruption is process restart, which interrupts service and discards runtime state.

Development And Validation Of An Operator-Friendly Flight Dynamics System For High-Precision Leo Nanosatellite Operations, K. W. Cheong, M. C. Kim, P. R. Kim, M. G. Kim, J. Y. Yu, G. H. Ju

Small Satellite Conference

A ground-based Flight Dynamics System (FDS) provides essential orbit information for satellite monitoring and mission planning. This study develops a Python-based integrated FDS that processes GPS observations, TLEs, and ephemerides through interconnected orbit determination, orbit propagation, and event prediction modules. The developed system combines Batch Least Squares orbit determination, HPOP/SGP4 propagation, covariance analysis, and nodal-crossing prediction within a consistent time and coordinate framework. 

The objective is to establish and validate an integrated workflow that generates reliable orbit states, future ephemerides, uncertainty information, and operational event products for CubeSat ground operations 

Experimental Assessment Of A 15-N Nitrous Oxide And Ethane Thruster For Premixed And Non-Premixed Operations, Eunwoo Jung, Juwon Kim, Eunkwang Lee, Keunseok Lee, Yonggu Kim, Minwoo Lee

Small Satellite Conference

• Nitrous Oxide (N₂O) has attracted significant attention as an oxidizer for next-generation small scale propulsion systems due to its non-toxic and high vapor pressure, which enables self-pressurization.  
• By combining N₂O with hydrocarbon fuels, propulsion systems can be operated either as bipropellant systems or as premixed propulsion systems.  
• N₂O-based premixed propellants, commonly known as NOFB (Nitrous Oxide Fuel Blend), require only a single propellant tank, similar to monopropellant systems, resulting in a simplified system architecture; however, their high susceptibility to flashback necessitates the incorporation of dedicated flashback prevention devices.  
• The objective of this study is …

Functional Analysis Of Raspberry Pi Rp-Series Microcontrollers Using High-Dose Gamma Radiation For Low-Cost Cubesats, Tyler Nielsen, Aaron Bournias, Joe Dubois

Small Satellite Conference

Radiation testing of non-rad hard microcontrollers is crucial for low-cost CubeSats, allowing teams to avoid the prohibitive cost of radiation-hardened systems while still selecting microcontrollers that will survive in the irradiated environment of space.

In-Transit Debris Remediation: Dual-Use Logistics For Sustainable Cislunar Smallsat Constellations, Wanjiku Chebet Kanjumba

Small Satellite Conference

A Debris Crisis Meets A Logistics Boom: Low- and high-Earth orbit keep accumulating debris faster than the atmosphere can clear it, even as NASA's Artemis and CLPS programs establish routine trans-lunar traffic. The 2009 Iridium-Cosmos collision and later anti-satellite tests proved that single fragmentation events can irreversibly degrade critical orbital shells, raising the specter of Kessler Syndrome. 

• 46,600+ objects tracked on orbit today, with ~130 million sub-cm fragments (ESA, 2025)
• $500K-$2M cost per kilogram for dedicated ADR, fiscally intractable at system scale
• 5-10 / yr large objects must be removed to stabilize LEO (Liou & Johnson)

The Unit-Economics Problem: Purpose-built …

Lessons Learned From The Hyvrid 3u Cubesat Development, Kim Jee Hoon

Small Satellite Conference

Space Object Surveillance System 

• Hanwha Systems’ Next Generation Satellite Laser Ranging (NGSLR) uses the turnaround time of laser emitted from the ground to measure precise distance of satellites or space objects.  
• It is also capable of precise orbit prediction and active response by utilizing high-energy laser. 

Verification Satellite

• CubeSat HYVRID is made to operate as a target satellite of the NGSLR system, verifying the laser ranging, precise orbit prediction, and active response technology.
  • GPS raw data
  • laser detection data
  • images captured before-and-after active response

Numerical Characterization Of Phase Coherence In Distributed Smallsat Sar Interferometry, Cameron Kaminski

Small Satellite Conference

Distributed SmallSat SAR requires independent spacecraft to maintain phase coherence over long integration times. This work presents a Monte Carlo simulation that combines manufacturer-derived oscillator phase noise, spacecraft thermal dynamics, and orbital perturbations to evaluate passive coherence limits. The results show that oscillator quality alone is insufficient; differential thermal-state evolution becomes a dominant driver of long-duration coherence performance.

Polarization-Modulated Laser Satellite Experiment (Pulse-A) Thermal Control, Zane Ebel, Alexavier Moore, Samy Kouidri, Veryan Johnson, Robert Pitu, Juan Ignacio Prieto Asbun, Tian Zhong

Small Satellite Conference

• UChicago's first student-developed satellite, started in September 2023
• Accepted under Batch 15 of NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) in March 2024
• 3U CubeSat demonstrating space-to-ground optical downlink using circular polarization shift keying (CPolSK)
• LEO, 400-500 km, ~90 min orbit
• Preparing for Critical Design Review in Fall 2026

Aggiesat6 University Cubesat Ops Prep And Leops, Avery G. Barriga, Garrett M. Stevenson, John F. Connolly

Small Satellite Conference

AggieSat6 (AGS6) is a 6U CubeSat designed and developed by students at Texas A&M University (TAMU) as part of the University Nanosatellite Program (UNP) NS-10 cycle. The mission will demonstrate a space-based radio frequency array for Space Domain Awareness (SDA) applications and collect low-energy electron radiation data to improve existing environmental models. Beginning in January 2025, students at TAMU established mission operations architecture, implemented operator training and certification, and prepared to assume sole responsibility for on-orbit operations. The AggieSat6 bus launched into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) in April of 2026. The AGS6 Mission was supported by the University Nanosatellite Program. …

Experimental Analysis Of Cryptography Overhead For Secure Cubesat Telemetry, Tyler Field, Michael Goryll

Small Satellite Conference

Encryption consumes critical and limited resources, such as computing power, energy, and memory. Results from this research has helped SquidSat, a student-led 3u CubeSat launching sometime in 2027-2028, by providing data showing which microcontrollers are most effective for encryption algorithms.