Digital Commons Network^™

Reusable Electron: Analysis Of Progress Toward The World's First Reusable Commercial Small Rocket, Lars Hoffman, Murielle Baker, Shane Glynn, Matt Darley, Peter Beck

Small Satellite Conference

Leading end-to-end space company Rocket Lab has significantly advanced its rocket reusability program over the past 12 months, bringing the Electron launch vehicle closer to becoming the world’s first reusable commercial orbital class small rocket. Applying the concept of a circular economy to rocketry, Rocket Lab’s reusability of Electron is expected to produce benefits to the space industry including reduced environmental pressure, innovation in rocket reuse technology, better sustainability of material supply, and lower launch costs to the burgeoning small satellite market.

Rocket Lab’s concept of operations for rocket recovery includes the capture of a returning Electron first stage mid-air …

Ops-Sat Leop And Commissioning: Running A Nanosatellite Project In A Space Agency Context, David Evans, Georges Labrèche, Tom Mladenov, Dominik Marszk, Vladimir Zelenevskiy, Vasundhara Shiradhonkar

Small Satellite Conference

OPS-SAT is a 3U CubeSat launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) on December 18, 2019. It is the first nanosatellite to be directly owned and operated by ESA. The spacecraft is a flying platform that is easily accessible to European industry, institutions, and individuals, enabling rapid prototyping, testing, and validation of their software and firmware experiments in space at no cost and no bureaucracy. The spacecraft is equipped with a full set of sensors and actuators including a camera, GNSS, star tracker, reaction wheels, high speed X band and S band communication, laser receiver, software defined radio receiver, and …

Remote Sensing Experiments Using The Rogue-Alpha,Beta Cubesats As A Constellation: High Frame Rate Environmental Observations From Agile, Taskable, Infrared And Visible Sensors In Low Earth Orbit, Dee W. Pack, Pradeep Thiyanaratnam, Tom Freeze, Brian S. Hardy, John R. Santiago, David Pietrowski, Jon C. Mauerhan, Patrick D. Johnson, Paul F. Zittel, Cameron R. Purcell

Small Satellite Conference

The Aerospace Corporation’s Rogue-alpha,beta program built and launched two 3-Unit CubeSats in 18-months, each equipped with modified commercial infrared camera payloads, visible context cameras, laser communications and precision pointing capabilities. Launched on November 2, 2019, the two spacecraft (Rogue-alpha and beta) were boosted and released from the International Space Station Cygnus NG-12 robotic resupply spacecraft on January 31, 2020 into a circular 460-km, 52° inclined orbit. The primary Rogue IR sensor is a 1.4-micron band, 640x512 pixel, 28° field of view, InGaAs short wavelength infrared (SWIR) camera. It is accompanied by a panchromatic, 10-megapixel, 37° field of view visible context …

Near Earth Asteroid Scout - Mission Update, Les Johnson, Erin Betts, Andrew Heaton, Clif Jones, Leslie Mcnutt, Matt Pruitt, Jim Stott, Darren Wallace, Rick Wilson, Julie Castillo-Rogez, Gregory Lantoine, Calina Seybold, Ted Sweetser

Small Satellite Conference

After its deployment from NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), the Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) Scout mission will travel to and image an asteroid during a close flyby using an 86m2 solar sail as its primary propulsion. Solar sails are large, mirror-like structures made of a lightweight material that reflects sunlight to propel the spacecraft. The continuous solar photon pressure provides thrust with no need for the heavy, expendable propellants used by conventional chemical and electric propulsion systems. Developed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the NEA Scout is based on the industry-standard CubeSat form factor. …

Capstone: A Summary Of Flight Operations To Date In The Cislunar Environment, Thomas Gardner, Brad Cheetham, Jeff Parker, Alec Forsman, Ethan Kayser, Michael Thompson, Connor Ott, Lauren Demoudt, Matt Bolliger, Arlen Kam, Keith Thompson, Tristan Latchu, Rebecca Rogers, Brennan Bryant, Tomas Svitek

Small Satellite Conference

The cislunar environment is about to get much busier and with this increase in traffic comes an increase in the demand for limited resources such as Earth based tracking of and communications with assets operating in and around the Moon. With the number of NASA, commercial, and international missions to the Moon growing rapidly, the need to make these future endeavors as efficient as possible is a challenge that is being solved now. Advanced Space is aiming to mitigate these resource limitations by enabling spacecraft in the cislunar environment to navigate autonomously and reduce the need for oversubscribed ground assets …

Gei-Sat Constellation For Greenhouse Gases Detection And Quantification, Marcos Ubierna, Manuel Montesino, Eider Ocerin, Roberto Fabrizi, Tania Meixus Fernandez

Small Satellite Conference

GEI-SAT constellation will embark SATLANTIS’ solution for methane emissions detection and quantification. GEI-SAT pursues hot spot mapping of low emission levels of methane with a low-mass and low-cost very high-resolution multispectral SWIR camera onboard CubeSats & Microsats. The overall mission consists of: GEI-SAT Precursor, a 16U CubeSat (17.4 kg, ~150 kg/h detection threshold, 1.65 m resolution @VNIR and 13 m resolution @SWIR, up to 1700 nm) to be launched in Q1 2023; GEI-SAT Plus, a Microsat (92 kg, ~100 kg/h detection threshold, 0.8 m resolution @VNIR and ~7 m resolution @SWIR, up to 1700 nm) to be launched in Q4 …

On Trusting Third-Party Satellite Data, Sean Crosby, Kurt Brenning

Small Satellite Conference

Increased access to space has opened the door to many satellite vendors. These vendors are collecting data using a variety of sensors, including electro-optical, radio frequency, and synthetic aperture radar. Customers want true-sourced, authentic data. However, as with any lower barrier to entry, the risk of counterfeit, tampered, or low-quality products increases. In this work, we describe the key requirements for trusting imagery and present a hardware design and a system of controls that meet those requirements of trust for Earth imaging satellites. Our trusted hardware provides assurance of capture time, location, and preserves the content and origin by capturing …

Developing Lunar Flashlight And Near-Earth Asteroid Scout Flight Software Concurrently Using Open-Source F Prime Flight Software Framework, Aadil Rizvi, Kevin F. Ortega, Yutau He

Small Satellite Conference

NASA’s Lunar Flashlight (LF) and Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) Scout CubeSat missions are planned to launch in 2022. Lunar Flashlight is a low-cost secondary payload concept that will map the lunar South Pole for volatiles and demonstrate several technological firsts, including the first planetary CubeSat mission to use green propulsion, and the first mission to use lasers to look for water ice. NEA Scout is a low-cost concept that will map an asteroid and demonstrate several technological firsts, including being the first CubeSat to reach an asteroid.

Flight software for both CubeSat missions is based on the open-source F Prime Flight …

Disksat: Demonstration Mission For A Two-Dimensional Satellite Architecture, Richard Welle, Catherine Venturini, David Hinkley, Joseph Gangestad, Sara Grasso, Anastasia Muszynski, Roger Hunter, Chad Frost, David Mayer, Christopher Baker

Small Satellite Conference

The DiskSat is a quasi-two-dimensional satellite bus architecture designed for applications requiring high power, large apertures, and/or high maneuverability in a low-mass containerized satellite. A representative DiskSat structure is a composite flat panel, one meter in diameter and 2.5 cm thick. The volume is almost 20 liters, equivalent to a hypothetical 20U CubeSat, while the structural mass is less than 3 kg. The surface area is large enough to host over 200 W of solar cells without deployable solar panels. For launch, multiple DiskSats are stacked in a fully enclosed container/deployer using a simple mechanical interface and are released individually …

Iris Transponder Enhancements For Deep Space And Lunar Operations, Dana Sorensen, Tom Russell, Tim Neilsen, Jon Hunt, Zaid Towfic

Small Satellite Conference

No abstract provided.

G-Class Avionics: An Australian Common Sense Avionics Framework, Shaun Kenyon, Philippe Laniakea, Pierfranco Valitutti

Small Satellite Conference

The Australian space industry is undergoing a big bang. Mission concepts and technologies are developing for everything from Launch, CubeSat and larger LEO missions and even interplanetary missions. Gilmour Space Technologies is developing solutions for all space domains, and is also building a strategic supply chain to enable sovereign capability. An important part of this strategy is the development and adoption of a common technical framework for space-qualified avionics that can be adapted for use on Next-generation Australian spacecraft, from low-cost rapid LEO missions to advanced interplanetary missions.

Making Space For Nasa's Core Flight System Applications, David Mccomas, William Tandy

Small Satellite Conference

NASA’s core Flight System (cFS) is an open-source flight software framework that runs successful space missions. However, even with growing adoption, cFS can have a challenging learning curve and incomplete documentation. Our new Base Camp toolkit is a new open-source approach developed to help remedy these problems for cFS applications.

Base Camp combines NASA Glenn Research Center’s cFS Electronic Data Sheet (EDS) toolchain and refactored components from the author’s OpenSatKit (OSK) to provide a lightweight, portable, python-based toolkit. This toolkit allows users to graphically interact with a cFS target running an OSK Runtime App Suite that provides essential functionality like …

Attitude Control Calibration And Experiment Testbed To Characterize Attitude Determination And Control System Performance, Jordan H. Hsieh, Jing-Yuan Huang, Thomas Yen, Sam Lee, Austin Chang, Luke Hou

Small Satellite Conference

This paper describes the design, development, and construction of an attitude control testbed to investigate the performance of ADCS. The Testbed consists of three instruments, an air-bearing platform, a Helmholtz cage, and an AM0 spectrum solar simulator. The Testbed in this research features the capability to measure the mass properties of the tested satellite. One of the motivations of this paper is to share the experience while building this highly automated Testbed. Finally, the procedure of the mass properties measurement will be well described in this paper.

Task Oriented Programming For The Rc64 Manycore Dsp, Ran Ginosar, Peleg Aviely

Small Satellite Conference

RC64 is a rad-hard manycore DSP combining 64 VLIW/SIMD DSP cores, lock-free shared memory, a hardware scheduler and a task-based programming model. The hardware scheduler enables fast scheduling and allocation of fine grain tasks to all cores. Parallel programming is based on Tasks.

Initial Assessment Of A Generative Adversarial Approach To Rover Path Planning Supported By Space-Based Assets, Guglielmo Daddi, Nicolaus Notaristefano, Fabrizio Stesina, Sabrina Corpino

Small Satellite Conference

No abstract provided.

On-Orbit Data And Validation Of Astra's Ace Electric Propulsion System, Matthew Gill, Rafael Martinez, Alex Zannos, Todd Bailey, Michael Cassidy, Jim Cooney, Alex Crawford, Jason Cuadra, Jorge Delgado, Jon Fuller, Maureen Haverty, Mark Hopkins, Edward Keyes, Lauren Lee, Dean Massey, Kevin Mcclellan, Jamillah Pittman, Michael Schmidt, Dhaval Shiyani, Todd Sorel

Small Satellite Conference

The first ACE propulsion system reached orbit on July 1^st 2021 as part of Spaceflight’s demonstration of the Sherpa-LTE all-electric Orbital Transfer Vehicle (OTV). We are now able to share on-orbit data and have successfully verified the on-orbit performance of the ACE propulsion system, using xenon propellent. The mission objective was to lower altitude and use on-orbit data to derive performance, correlating the propulsion system’s performance to ground test data. The demonstration consisted of activating the propulsion system for 5- minute durations at a total input power of 340 W into the Power Processing Unit (PPU). Altitude change and …

Architecture Of High Power Nanosatellites, Boris Yendler, Andrew Kalman

Small Satellite Conference

Current CubeSat architecture has been developed “ad hoc” throughout multiple years with main goals of creating mechanically stable, sufficiently lightweight and low-cost structure. From their conception up to the current times, thermal issues in CubeSats have been of little concern due to relatively low power consumption. Typically, to accommodate a considerable number of different components in a CubeSat, the components are mounted on brackets. The brackets are connected to external panels which radiate waste heat into space. This heat path, from a component to a radiator, typically has a high thermal resistance which worsens the thermal performance of the satellite. …

Mission Engineering And The Cubesat System Reference Model - Status #2, David Kaslow, Alejandro Levi, Bradley Ayres, David Hurst, Chuck Croney, Philip T. Cahill, Steven A. Maclaird

Small Satellite Conference

The International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) Space System Working Group (SSWG) has created the CubeSat System Reference Model™ (CSRM™) intended for use by system architects and engineers as a starting point to develop the physical architecture of the Space and Ground segments of the CubeSat mission of interest to them. The CSRM is based on Model-Based System Engineering (MBSE) principles, is System Modeling Language™ (SysML™) v1.7 compliant, and hosted in a graphical modeling tool. The CSRM has been submitted to the Object Management Group (OMG) and is in the finalization process to become an OMG Specification.

With the development …

On-Orbit Characterization Of A Microelectromechanical Systems (Mems) Deformable Mirror (Dm) On The Deformable Mirror Demonstration Mission (Demi) Cubesat, Sophia Vlahakis

Small Satellite Conference

The Deformable Mirror Demonstration Mission (DeMi) CubeSat operated from July 2020 to March 2022 and demonstrated the successful operation of a Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) Deformable Mirror (DM) on orbit for the first time. The payload design is an adaptive optics system with a 140-actuator MEMS DM from the Boston Micromachines Corporation (BMC) and a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor (SHWFS). DMs can correct wavefront errors from a variety of sources to improve image quality. MEMS DMs are particularly well suited for space systems because they are compact low power devices and have a high density of actuators with a large stroke to …

Recovery Of A Lost Satellite: The Armadillo Mission, Dillan Mcdonald

Small Satellite Conference

After 949 days in space, contact with the ARMADILLO CubeSat from the University of Texas at Austin has been established. After a complete reconstruction of the ground command software, the Space System Design Laboratory (SSDL) at Georgia Tech has commanded and received acknowledgements and data downlinks from ARMADILLO as well as commanded a hard reset. The Georgia Tech Ground Station Network (GT GSN) has leveraged its autonomous contact capability to maintain consistent contact with ARMADILLO, enabling it to remain online for longer than a week. Something ARMADILLO had previously never accomplished due to the ground contact condition for onboard reset …

Attitude Determination With Self-Inspection Cameras Repurposed As Earth Horizon Sensors, Atilla Saadat

Small Satellite Conference

Attitude determination for small satellites is a vital aspect of spacecraft operations. Earth Horizon Sensor(s) (EHS) are one of many sensors used in on-orbit attitude estimation. A conventional EHS captures infrared images of the Earth’s horizon and estimates the nadir vector in the spacecraft body frame, using the Earth’s curvature and prior knowledge of the spacecraft’s orbit. However, the design and test of new sensors increase mission cost and development time, while some spacecraft may not be able to accommodate such dedicated sensors. Therefore, it is beneficial if existing onboard optical sensors could be repurposed as effective EHS. The Space …

Implementation And Characterization Of Commercial Off-The-Shelf Inertial Measurement Units For The Attitude Determination System Of The Move-Iii Cubesat, Natalia Piotrowski

Small Satellite Conference

This paper determines a suitable Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) for the Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS) of the third satellite generation of the Munich Orbital Verification Experiment (MOVE). The ADCS is required to provide an attitude determination with an accuracy of < 1°, which has to be achieved with both IMUs and sun sensors, at a low price, due to a low financial budget. In the context of this work, the three IMUs the BNO055, ICM20948 and LSM9DS1 are selected and analyzed. Additionally, the LIS3MDL magnetometer and the BMI088 gyroscope are used for further analysis and comparison. The error coefficients of each sensor measurement are initially calculated through the Allan variance, and these are then verified through Welch’s power spectral density estimate, simulations, and additional sensor measurements. Further temperature experiments are performed to characterize the behaviour of the sensor under changing temperatures. Evaluating the most accurate error coefficients found the BNO055 gyroscope to be the least affected by the white noise compared to the remaining gyroscopes. The LSM9DS1 appears to be the sensor least influenced by the random walk and white noise term among the magnetometers. The BNO055 magnetometer is the comparatively least affected by temperature changes, while the BMI088 appears the most stable amongst the gyroscopes. Finally, the BNO055 IMU is recommended to the ADCS of the MOVE-III CubeSat. It appeared to be the least influenced by different error sources and the ambient temperature.

On-Board Images To Characterize A Cubesat's Adcs, Boris Segret, Sam Bammens, Sergio Bras, Dominik Marszk, Vasundhara Shiradhonkar, Vladimir Zelenevskiy, David Evans

Small Satellite Conference

ADCS for nanosatellites in the New Space sector are frequently offered as Commercial-Off-The-Shelves (COTS) systems. However, when the COTS datasheet and the actual performance in flight differ dramatically, there are few means to assess the discrepancies. Here, we update on the current operations with a flying nanosatellite to assess the attitude stability during inertial pointing mode, based on the analysis of on-board images of the sky. The satellite is OPS-SAT, a 3-unit CubeSat owned and operated by ESA. The imager is directed to the -Z longitudinal axis and the star tracker and a Sun sensor are oriented in the transversal …

Development And Deployment Of Remotely Operable Optical Communication Terminals, Rudd C. Johnson, Josef M. Wicker, Andrew Lin, Erik C. Dillingham, Paul Le, Jairo Esquivel, John C. Mergo, Darren Rowen

Small Satellite Conference

Since the launch of the Optical Communication and Sensor Demonstration (OCSD) Mission in November 2017, The Aerospace Corporation has relied upon a manually operated optical terminal in El Segundo, CA to support optical communications downlinks. Scaling our constellation of laser communication capable small satellites and resulting increase in data volume has necessitated multiple geographically dispersed optical ground stations. In 2021, The Aerospace Corporation developed and deployed two remotely operable optical terminals in Maui, Hawaii and Albuquerque, New Mexico, demonstrating up to 200 Mbps downlink communication rates with Forward Error Correction. The station is comprised primarily of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components …

An Updated Overview Of The Satellite Networked Open Ground Stations (Satnogs) Project, Kevin Croissant, Dan White, Xabier Crespo Álvarez, Vasileios Adamopoulos, Cees Bassa, Redouane Boumghar, Hugh Brown, Fredy Damkalis, Ilias Daradimos, Patrick Dohmen, Julien Flawinne, Jan Van Gils, Mark Jessop, Nikos Karamolegos, Eleftherios Kosmas, Julien Nicolas, Aris Nikas, Dimitrios Papadeas, Pierros Papadeas, Manthos Papamatthaiou, Thanos Patsas, Mixalis Raptakis, Fabian Schmidt, Nestoras Sdoukos, Corey Shields, Manolis Surligas, Kostantinos Triantafyllakis, Nikoletta Triantafyllopoulou, George Tsagkarelis, Vasilis Tsiligiannis, Alexandros Tsourapas, Giorgos Vardakis, Agisilaos Zisimatos

Small Satellite Conference

An overview of the SatNOGS project, a network of satellite ground stations around the world, optimized for modularity, built from readily available and affordable tools and resources. The rate of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite launches increases with the participation of old and new entities. In this growing environment, SatNOGS provides a scalable and modular solution to track, identify, receive telemetry from, monitor, and assist operators in command/control of satellites. The SatNOGS global community, dedicated to its free and open-source values, develops hardware ground station designs (antennas, rotators, electronics), software for SDR-based communications, satellite scheduling and mission monitoring platforms. SatNOGS …

An Automated Approach To Maneuver Campaign Management For Skysats, Vishnuu Mallik, Joel Mueting, Adam Reuter, Alex Paul, Lisa Mcgill, Bhavi Jagatia, Vishwa Shah

Small Satellite Conference

Planet Labs PBC currently operates a fleet of 21 high-resolution imaging, Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites called SkySats comprised of both a sun-synchronous constellation and a lower inclination constellation. Due to their low altitude, operational constraints, and mission-driven requirements on image resolution and coverage, there is a need to perform routine stationkeeping and occasional constellation reconfiguration maneuver campaigns for these satellites. The Mission Systems team at Planet is currently implementing an automated and robust maneuver management system that autonomously plans and executes all SkySat maneuvers in order to reduce operator workload and improve overall constellation management efficiency. This paper describes …

Cobalt: The Next Step In Low Swap-C Optical Terminal Design, Scott E. Palo, Ryan Kingsbury, Jon C. Twichell

Small Satellite Conference

Blue Cubed has developed Cobalt, a full duplex optical terminal which can support both symmetric crosslinks and downlinks. The system has been engineered to be modular, easily mass produced and available at a competitive price. Cobalt is intended for low earth orbit small satellite applications that require 100 Mbps to 10 Gbps per communication links at ranges of up to 4000 km. The Cobalt core transceiver (excluding the telescope) is roughly 0.5U (9 x 9 x 5 cm), one kilogram, and consumes 10 W of electrical power for the 3 Gbps system variant. An increased data rate can be achieved …

Cubesat Reusable Interface Software Platform (Crisp): A Lightweight Message-Bus-Based Flight Software Architecture For Rapid Payload Integration, Rory H. Scobie, Kevin D. Kaufeld, Bradley J. Hoose, Keith S. Morgan, Kimberly K. Katko, Markus P. Hehlen, John M. Michel

Small Satellite Conference

The Agile Space portfolio of projects at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) develops low-cost, rapidly-deployable space payloads and systems. To increase the agility of future missions, we are developing CRISP: the CubeSat Reusable Interface Software Platform. CRISP provides a lightweight and reusable flight software framework for rapid integration of custom payloads with commercial microsatellite platforms. CRISP cuts development time and costs by reducing non-recurring engineering (NRE); thereby accelerating mission agility. To achieve these goals, CRISP provides a core set of payload/data management functions and abstracts the interface between the bus avionics and the payload(s). CRISP currently consists of the following …

Nepal's Danfe Space Mission: Technology Demonstration Mission On A 3u Cubesat To Mitigate Glacial Lake Outburst Floods, Sirash Sayanju, Janardhan Silwal, Devraj Pant, Sagar Koirala, Bikalpa Dhungana, Abhas Maskey

Small Satellite Conference

The United Nations Development Program ranks Nepal as the fourth-most country susceptible to climate change. The Global warming has caused more than 40 glacial lakes to potentially burst at any moment. A few Early Warning Systems are in place but are connected by ground cellular networks. A ground-to-space monitoring system instead, can help deter Glacial Lake Outburst Flood reliably. This paper outlines such a system through Nepal's Danfe Space Mission placed on a 3U CubeSat. Danfe demonstrates the first use case of ported PX4 drone Operating System alongside a LoRa integrated STM32 Satellite System-on-Chip. A Ground Sensor Terminal with ultrasonic …

Promoting Satellite Communications: Training Students In The Design Of Nano-Satellite Communications, Boston Viorel, Ilco Valentin, Melnic Vladimir, Martiniuc Alexei, Varzaru Vladimir, Secrieru Nicolae

Small Satellite Conference

The National Center for Space Technologies (NCST) of Technical University of Moldova (TUM) has been oriented towards a series of nanosatellites, according to the international standard CubeSat. In 2019, NCST participated in the fourth round of the KiboCUBE Program with the nanosatellite “TUMnanoSAT”.

KiboCUBE Program is a collaboration between UNOOSA and JAXA that aims to provide to the United Nations Organization members opportunity to launch CubeSat satellites developed for educational and research purposes.

The NCST team was selected by the Japan Aerospace Agency (JAXA) and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) for the fourth round of the …