Digital Commons Network^™

Creating A Setup To Assess The Use Of Virtual Reality For Mission Control, Felix Sittner, Cedric Liman, Gino Schulze, Hans Schülein, Jan Schmieder, Jan Tischhöfer, Marlene Busch, Sergio Montenegro

Small Satellite Conference

This paper describes a work in progress. We are preparing our first cubesat mission, InnoCube, which we plan to launch in spring 2023. We are also in the process of moving the whole chair to another building, and creating a new mission control room. We take this as an opportunity to try and compare some novel approaches, that might make the work of the ground team easier.

Our mission, InnoCube, is designed to test a “skip the harness (skith)” approach, which means the system is comprised of multiple autonomous computing nodes communicating wirelessly with each other. Each of these nodes …

Ballistic Aerocapture For Smallsat: A Case Study For Venus Atmospheric Sampling Probe, Oswaldo Santana, Ye Lu

Small Satellite Conference

Aerocapture is a maneuver that can improve the capabilities of interplanetary small satellite missions to efficiently deliver a probe to a target destination. The maneuver is accomplished with a single atmospheric pass followed by a small propulsive burn to reach the final orbit. In this paper, we consider a SmallSat atmospheric sampling probe with an existing heatshield and evaluate the performance and benefits of ballistic aerocapture. The performance is assessed by comparing ΔV required of a fully propulsive orbital insertion and that of a ballistic aerocapture. Significant fuel mass savings can be achieved with a passive lifting vehicle. With a …

Observing And Tracking The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Chris Greenly, Hannah Gray, Hueson Wong, Samuel Chinn, James Passmore, Prisilla Johnson, Yaseen Zaidi

Small Satellite Conference

The subtropical waters between Hawaii and California are currently infested with an accumulation of plastic estimated to be twice the area of Texas, otherwise known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP). This paper presents a novel CubeSat mission to monitor the size, growth and position of the GPGP. At 1.6 million square kilometres, the GPGP is by far the largest and most serious accumulation of garbage out of the five patches littered across the world’s oceans. If we are to prevent further damage to the marine ecosystems, it is imperative we act with the utmost urgency. Leveraging recent technological …

How Satellites Are Moving Beyond The Class System: Class Agnostic Development And Operations Approaches For Constraints-Driven Missions, Barbara Braun, Lee Jasper

Small Satellite Conference

Should we abolish the Class System? The Class A/B/C/D mission assurance and risk posture designations familiar to most satellite developers were established in 1986. They are used by both the Department of Defense (DoD) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to define risk and risk mitigation requirements for flight missions. However, many of today’s satellites are different – smaller, digitally engineered, designed for production, and increasingly destined for proliferated architectures. The rate of development is increasing while the uniqueness of the systems being built is decreasing.

The need to move faster and the ability to utilize, for the first …

Rf Cables: The Overlooked Satellite Component, Andrew Kurzrok, Maria Calia

Small Satellite Conference

In comparison to the difficult work of payload design and system integration, specifying the correct RF cables seems all-too simple. A passive microwave component, the purpose of an RF cable is simply to transport an analog signal from one physical location on the satellite to another.

However, RF cabling design decisions can mean the difference between mission success and failure. RF cables can represent a potential weak link in overall system design because they are mechanically and electrically exposed. All too often, we find engineers have specified RF cables that either do not optimize for system performance or create mission …

Non Data-Aided Carrier Tracking Techniques For Continuous-Phase Frequency-Shift Keyed Signals, Brendan Hill, Nazia Mozaffar, Salwan Damman

Small Satellite Conference

Communications between ground stations and nanosats in low earth orbit (LEO) require acquisition and tracking of large Doppler frequency offsets due to the relative velocity between the transmitter and the receiver. The Doppler frequency shift varies with time, reaching its fastest rate of change as the small satellite reaches its closest approach to the ground station. For phase modulated signals, a frequency offset estimate extracted from the band edge filters is used to correct for the Doppler shift. This approach encounters difficulties when it’s used to correct for frequency offset in continuous phase frequency shift keyed (CPFSK) signals. Optimized band …

Improved Orbital Propagator Integrated With Sgp4 And Machine Learning, Zac Yung-Chun Liu, Scott Tarlow, Mohammad Akbar, Quentin Donnellan, Darek Senkow

Small Satellite Conference

The current industry standard orbital propagator, the Simplified General Perturbation Model-4 (SPG4), relies completely on physics-based orbital mechanics, can only provide accurate orbital predictions ~12 hours in advance. We developed a novel hybrid model, combining the SGP4 baseline with two machine learning estimators, autoencoder and random forest, in order to reduce the errors of the SGP4 propagator. The sources of errors in SGP4 propagators come from incomplete perturbation calculations and low-order of series expansions. The time-series nature of these error patterns are modeled by our machine learning estimators and then are used to make corrections to the SGP4 propagation, which …

Advanced Technologies: 7 Degrees Of Freedom Robotic Arm On Archinaut One, Kevin French

Small Satellite Conference

In Space Manufacturing (ISM) combined with robotic In Space Assembly (ISA) enables autonomous construction of space structures including spin gravity habitation rings, precision synthetic aperture radar (SAR) structures, and trusses for kilometer scale solar sails. Archinaut One (AO), designated as OSAM-2 by NASA, will demonstrate ISM and ISA through the ability to 3D print and robotically manipulate meter scale structures in orbit all from an Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) Secondary Payload Adapter (ESPA) class satellite. This work focuses on challenges associated with autonomous robotic ISA and ISM operations. Limited computational resources, robot satellite coupled dynamics, contact dynamics, and short …

Result Of Space Particle Monitor (Spm) On-Orbit Demonstration, Yasunari Koumoto, Kazuo Tanimoto, Yasuo Terakado, Tsutomu Ueno, Yoko Suzuki, Noriaki Oka, Masahiro Umesato

Small Satellite Conference

Space Particle Monitor (SPM) is a compact, lightweight and low-cost radiation measurement device that applies two PIN silicon semiconductor detectors. SPM was developed in the SERVIS (Space Environment Reliability Verification Integrated System) project under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), and is mounted on JAXA RAPid Innovative payload demonstration Satellite 1 (RAPIS-1) launched in January 2019. We achieved the full success that the discrimination and energy content of electrons, protons, and heavy ions could be observed. This paper reports on-orbit demonstration results of SPM.

Ground Testing Of A Chip-Scale Atomic Clock For Maxwell Cubesat Flight Experiment, Luciana Schement, Caroline Dixon

Small Satellite Conference

This paper provides an overview of a flight experiment to observe the performance of a chip-scale atomic clock (CSAC) on a LEO cubesat. The results of this experiment will provide the basis for a realistic evaluation of the utility of the CSAC to support onboard position, navigation, and timing (PNT) applications for small satellites. The paper focuses on the goals and outcomes of ground testing performed on a CSAC in preparation for flight onboard the UNP-9 cubesat mission MAXWELL. The ground testing includes live sky testing, RF/GNSS simulator testing, and electromagnetic field testing.

An Analytical Approach To Modeling Spacecraft Potentials In Spice, Jason Powell

Small Satellite Conference

As the use of Langmuir probes on small satellites increases, so does the need to understand how spacecraft charging affects Langmuir Probe measurements. This paper explores the important relationship between probe and spacecraft surface area, and how it relates to the floating potential (or charge) on the spacecraft. Further, this paper discusses how a charged body’s interaction with the ionosphere can be modeled using custom circuit elements designed in SPICE. The SPICE models introduced are demonstrated with the SPORT spacecraft, a 6U mission that makes Langmuir probe measurements in concert with two electric field probes used to account for the …

Effects Of Gravitational Time Dilation In Short-Duration Balloon Satellite Flights, George Zhang, Aaron Flowers, Saleem Ali

Small Satellite Conference

The theory of general relativity stipulates that clocks located in a stronger gravitational field run more slowly than clocks located in a weaker gravitational field. This time dilation is often small and hard to detect. Its measurement requires precisely synchronized clocks accurate to the nanosecond level. An experiment aimed at detecting gravitational time dilation should last long enough to allow for detectable time drift to accumulate within the two clocks. This amount of time depends on the precision of the clocks used in the experiment. We describe the procedures followed to accomplish the task of measuring gravitational time dilation relying …

Constellation Forecasting Tools For Autonomous Operations, Alexander Dunn, Joe Miceli, Michael Reher

Small Satellite Conference

Large constellations are quickly becoming the norm in small satellite missions. These constellations are being designed and developed faster than ever before through the utilization of smaller, heterogeneous spacecraft. Often, these constellations provide increased resiliency and capabilities over their heritage, highly tailored counterparts. The ability to replace on-orbit assets quickly and with lower costs is an advantageous feature of these large smallsat constellations. With the advent of these new architectures, though, come increased complexity in mission operations. The management and monitoring of potentially hundreds of heterogeneous space assets can be extremely challenging and negate much of the cost savings using …

Design And Validation Of An Autonomous Mission Manager Towards Coordinated Multi-Spacecraft Missions, Antony Gillette, Alan George, J. Patrick Castle

Small Satellite Conference

For ambitious upcoming aerospace missions, autonomy will play a crucial role in achieving complex mission goals and reducing the burden for ground operations. Standalone spacecraft can leverage autonomy concepts to optimize data collection and ensure robust operation. For spacecraft clusters, autonomy can additionally provide a feasible method of ensuring coordination through onboard peer-to-peer scheduling. However, in exchange for providing flexible mission capabilities and operational convenience, autonomy introduces additional uncertainty and software complexity, which complicates the mission assurance process. This research presents a framework for designing and testing schedules consisting of heavily constrained tasks.

The core of this framework, the Schedule …

Developing A Prototype Ground Station For The Processing, Exploitation, And Dissemination Of Pleo Sensor Data, Jennifer Wilbur, David Simenc, Eric Principato, Travis Williams, Jason Hamant, Matthew Mchugh, Sander Malmquist, John Maloney, Debi Rose, Dan Rossiter, Paul Wood

Small Satellite Conference

The Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) recently executed a quick-turnaround (16 month) effort through the Defense Innovation Unit to develop a prototype ground architecture demonstrating low-latency processing, exploitation, and dissemination of data collected by notional multi-phenomenology sensors hosted on small satellites in a proliferated LEO constellation. This effort, led by the Southwest Research Institute and supported by teammates, Amazon Web Services, SpaceX, and SciTec, Inc., involved the modeling and simulation of a variety of different OPIR, EO/IR, and SAR data streams; transporting these data via space and ground networks; processing the data in the AWS cloud environment; …

Nasa Leveraging Commercial Communication Ground Stations For Small Satellites, Yen Wong, Scott Schaire, Chitra Patel, Leslie Ambrose, Obadiah Kegege, Denise Thorsen

Small Satellite Conference

The Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program at NASA has reorganized its operations portfolio into two networks: the Deep Space Network and the new Near Space Network (NSN). With this reorganization, NASA can begin transforming to 100% direct-to-Earth commercial communications services for missions in the near-Earth region. NASA’s leveraging of commercial direct-to-Earth ground stations offers several benefits for the small satellite community, including lower cost, greater coverage, and increased technology infusion. In the fall of 2020, SCaN announced their intention to rely primarily on industry-provided communications services for missions close to Earth by 2030.

Commercial services are one way to …

Autonomous Systems Validation (Sysval) Environment For Advancing Mission Operations, Kelsey Doerksen, Karl Fischer

Small Satellite Conference

In order to maintain the health and productivity of satellites, it is crucial to develop a system that can swiftly, accurately, and effectively reproduce the on-orbit workflow and behavior a spacecraft experiences. To achieve this, Planet created the Systems Validation (SysVal) ecosystem; originally developed to validate individual spacecraft subsystem design requirements, and has evolved to encompass satellite concept of operation workflows, innovating test processes while mitigating risks through the ability to rapidly mimic on-orbit activities in a lab environment. SysVal is a fully integrated hardware and software system composed of a ground station network and a mission operations center with …

On The Automation, Optimization, And In-Orbit Validation Of Intelligent Satellite Constellation Operations, Gregory Stock, Juan A. Fraire, Holger Hermanns, Eduardo Cruz, Alastair Isaacs, Zhana Imbrosh

Small Satellite Conference

Recent breakthroughs in technology have led to a thriving “new space” culture in low-Earth orbit (LEO) in which performance and cost considerations dominate over resilience and reliability as mission goals. These advances create a manifold of opportunities for new research and business models but come with a number of striking new challenges. In particular, the size and weight limitations of low-Earth orbit small satellites make their successful operation rest on a fine balance between solar power infeed and the power demands of the mission payload and supporting platform technologies, buffered by on-board battery storage. At the same time, these satellites …

The Flare Network: Vicarious Cal/Val For Earth Observation Satellites, Brandon Russell, Jeff Holt, Christopher Durrell, Will Arnold, David Conran, Arin Jumpasut, Colm Lynch, Stephen Schiller

Small Satellite Conference

Calibration and characterization of radiometric and geospatial performance is necessary for the accurate retrieval of information from Earth Observation platforms. For small satellite constellations, this is especially true to ensure data quality and consistency among multiple craft that lack on-board calibration equipment. The Field Line-of-sight Automate Radiance Exposure (FLARE) Network provides an automated, on-demand calibration solution designed to meet the requirements of both agency and commercial operators by providing NIST traceable data without the need for expensive campaigns o r on-board calibration sources. FLARE radiometric performance has been verified with Landsat 8 – OLI. FLARE was successfully utilized with Planet …

The Eive Cubesat - Developing A Satellite Bus For A 71-76 Ghz E-Band Transmitter Payload, Markus T. Koller, Lukas-Maximilian Loidold, Thorben Löffler, Jakob Meier, Sabine Klinkner, Laura Manoliu, Benjamin Schoch, Ingmar Kallfass

Small Satellite Conference

A high-speed data downlink system provides many challenges for a CubeSat design. Two major aspect are an adequate power management as well as the thermal implications of the dissipated power. The goal of the 6U CubeSat EIVE is to prove the feasibility of an E-band link at 71-76 GHz and explore the influence of different atmospheric conditions on the link quality. The requirements of the E-band transmitter in terms of mass, volume, power and pointing accuracy outline the specific constraints imposed on the design of the satellite bus. The major design drivers of the system are the peak power demand …

On-Orbit Demonstration Of Innovative Multifunctional Membrane Structure For Ultra-Lightweight Solar Arrays And Array Antennas By 3u Cubesat Origamisat-1, Hiraku Sakamoto, Hiroshi Furuya, Hiroki Nakanishi, Akihito Watanabe, Nobuyoshi Kawabata, Toshiyuki Hori, Hiroaki Ito, Takeshi Kuratomi, Yuya Shimoda, Nana Hidaka, Kazuki Watanabe

Small Satellite Conference

The 3U CubeSat OrigamiSat-1’s deployable membrane structure is 1m-by-1m in size after deployment and is stowed in less than 1U CubeSat (10cm-by-10cm-by-8cm), including a hold-and-release mechanism. The major significance of the structural concept is that it allows the attachment of thin-film devices, such as thin-film solar cells or flexible substrates for antennas throughout the membrane. This was achieved by two features: (i) use of textile and (ii) invention of hybrid boom made of tubular carbon composite and metal convex tape. In addition, a visual membrane measurement system consisting of stereo cameras was developed. This paper describes the new technologies developed …

A Novel Satellite Architecture For The Next Generation Of Earth Observation Satellites Supporting Rapid Alerts, M. Kerr, S. Tonetti, S. Cornara, J. I. Bravo, R. Hinz, A. Latorre, F. Membibre, A. Ramos, A. Moron, C. Solimini, S. Wiehle, H. Breit, D. Günzel, S. Mandapati, B. Tings, U. Balss, O. Koudelka, F. Teschl, E. Magli, T. Bianchi, A. Migliorati, P. Motto Ros, M. Caon, M. Martina, R. Freddi, F. Milani, G. Curci, S. Fraile, C. Marcos

Small Satellite Conference

The EO-ALERT European Commission H2020 project proposes the definition, development, and verification and validation through ground hardware testing, of a next-generation Earth Observation (EO) data processing chain. The proposed data processing chain is based on a novel flight segment architecture that moves EO data processing elements traditionally executed in the ground segment to on-board the satellite, with the aim of delivering EO products to the end user with very low latency. EO-ALERT achieves, globally, latencies below five minutes for EO products delivery, and below one minute in realistic scenarios.

The proposed EO-ALERT architecture is enabled by on-board processing, recent improvements …

In-Flight Reconfiguration With System-On-Module Based Architectures For Science Instruments On Nanosatellites, Tom Neubert, Heinz Rongen, Uwe Clemens, Egon Zimmermann, Stefan Van Waasen, Martin Kaufmann, Martin Riese, Friedhelm Olschewski

Small Satellite Conference

For science payloads on nanosatellite missions, there is a great interest in cost-effective, reliable and state-of-the-art computing performance. Highly integrated system architectures combine reconfigurable System-on-Chip (SoC) devices, memory and peripheral interfaces in a single System-on-Module (SoM) and offer low resource requirements regarding power and mass, but moderate to high processing power capabilities. The major advantages of these architectures are flexibility, (re)programmability, modularity and module reuse.

However, it is a challenge to use SoM with COTS based memories devices in a radiation sensitive environment. In order to achieve these requirements, mitigation measures, such as the use of redundant or alternative memory …

Vv16: The First Vega Rideshare Mission: Lessons Learnt After Successful Flight, Christophe Roux, Elisa Nardi, Nicola Romanelli

Small Satellite Conference

The SSMS (Small Spacecraft Mission Service) program is a new multi-launch concept for the Vega and Vega C launchers, thanks to a new modular dispenser for the Small Satellites Market. The Vega Proof of Concept (POC) flight using the SSMS hardware was developed to provide solutions and services for the 1-400 kg mass class. The SSMS POC mission has successfully flown on VEGA VV16 flight on September 3^rd, 2020.

The paper describes the lesson learned after this first rideshare mission flight. Vega SSMS first Mission carried 43 different satellites ranging from 1 to 150 Kg from more than …

Small Launchers In A Pandemic World - 2021 Edition Of The Annual Industry Survey, Carlos Niederstrasser

Small Satellite Conference

Even with the challenges posed by the world-wide COVID pandemic, small vehicle "Launch Fever" has not abated. In 2015 we first presented this survey at the AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites, and we identified twenty small launch vehicles under development. By mid-2021 five new vehicles in this class were operational, 41 were identified under development, and a staggering 58 more were potential new entrants. Some are spurred by renewed government investment in space, such as what we see in the U.K. Others are new commercial entries from unexpected markets such as China. All are inspired by the success of SpaceX …

Bringing Deep Space Missions Within Reach For Small Spacecraft, Richard French, Ehson Mosleh, Christophe Mandy, Richard Hunter, Johnathan Currie, Doug Sinclair, Peter Beck

Small Satellite Conference

There is growing interest in using small spacecraft for science and exploration beyond low Earth orbit, but these missions have been constrained to fly as secondary payloads on rideshare missions that launch infrequently and on less-than-ideal trajectories.

Regular, dedicated, low-cost science missions to planetary destinations can be enabled by Rocket Lab’s high-ΔV small spacecraft, the high-energy Photon, supporting expanding opportunities for scientists and increasing the rate of science return. High-energy Photon can launch on Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle to precisely target escape asymptotes for planetary small spacecraft missions with payload masses up to ~40 kg without the need for …

Development And In-Flight Testing Of An Iodine Ion Thruster, Dmytro Rafalskyi, Javier Martínez Martínez, Lui Habl, Ane Aanesland

Small Satellite Conference

The increase in the number of small satellite missions is enabling the development of new mission scenarios, requiring in turn further miniaturization of the systems onboard. An example is the deployment of small satellite constellations, which typically require onboard propulsion to perform phasing, collision avoidance and deorbit maneuvers. In this work we describe the development, testing and first in-space demonstration of a one Cubesat unit standalone iodine-fueled electric propulsion system based on a gridded ion thruster. The propulsion system, called NPT30-I2-1U, has all the subsystems necessary to its operation integrated inside the 1U volume, such as power processing unit, operation …

Cu-Enhanced 3-D Printed Fuels For Green Smallsat Propulsion, Stephen A. Whitmore, Kurt C. Olsen, Victoria L. Coverstone, Cagri Y. Oztan

Small Satellite Conference

The Propulsion Research Laboratory at Utah State University (USU) has recently developed a promising High-Performance "Green" Hybrid Propulsion (HPGHP) technology that derives from the novel electrical breakdown property of certain 3-D printed like acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). This electrical breakdown property has been engineered into a proprietary, power-efficient system that can be cold-started and restarted with a high degree of reliability. One of the issues associated with ABS as a propellant is its low burn rate. It is well documented in technical literature that hybrid rocket systems generally have fuel regression rates that are typically 25-30% lower than solid fuel …

Lessons Learnt From Operating The First Cubesat Mission Equipped With A Hall Thruster, Paul Lascombes, Maxime Montès, Andrea Fiorentino, Tom Gelu, Mikael Fillastre, Antonio Gurciullo

Small Satellite Conference

Only a few electric propulsion solutions on-board small satellites have been operated in space, even if propulsion is nowadays seen as one of the most important subsystems for the future of small satellites. Exotrail demonstrated its Hall Effect Thruster propulsion solution in space at the end of 2020. It was the first Hall thruster ever flown onboard a satellite weighing below 100kg of mass, while also being the only known permanent magnet Hall Thruster demonstrated in space. Operations of small satellites with propulsion is a novel field and the behavior of such thrusters in space still brings new challenges.

Exotrail …

Ground Demonstration Of New Robotic Technologies For On Orbit Servicing To Enable Maneuver Without Regret For Small Sat Missions Beyond Geo, Atif M. Qureshi, Andy Mcevoy, Kodie Artner

Small Satellite Conference

In this paper we will discuss the demonstration of on-orbit servicing capabilities by a new robotic manipulator, designed from the bottom up to fit within the Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) constraints and budget expectations of smallsat missions. There is a recognized need for extreme mobility to meet the space domain awareness goals of the U.S. government in cis-lunar space, and on orbit servicing is the key to establishing this capability. In addition, a small spacecraft profile is critical, with transportation costs particularly high beyond earth orbit. In the past, robotic systems capable of on-orbit servicing have resulted from years …