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On-The-Fly Hardware-Accelerated Image Processing System For Target Recognition, Eugenio Scarpa, Emilio Fazzoletto

Small Satellite Conference

Upcoming robotic exploration missions are characterized by constantly increasing spacecraft autonomy requirements. This approach includes the necessity to face new challenging tasks, such as autonomous navigation capabilities, adaptive activity scheduling and on-the-edge data processing. When these scenarios meet small satellite platforms, coming with a plethora of resource constraints, an optimized implementation of computing intensive functionalities is necessary to achieve usable performance. Argotec, an Italian aerospace company, designs and develops its own avionics systems to enable challenging inter-planetary small satellite missions. Within this context, Argotec developed a proprietary implementation of a high-throughput image processing pipeline to support vision-based autonomous navigation and …

Optimal Control Approach For Dedicated On-Board Computer In Active Debris Removal Mission, Michaël Juillard, Jean-Paul Kneib

Small Satellite Conference

This paper describes the third iteration in the development of a simulation tool that provides trade-offs of avionic architectures for future Active Debris Removal (ADR) space missions.

The principle of ADR mission is to target an object in space and move it somewhere else, preferably by deorbiting it. The initial task of the satellite (chaser) is to detect and track the targeted debris or object, then perform some proximity operations before capturing it. Associated with each phase, there is a couple of unique challenging mainly linked to the uncooperativeness of the target. To handle these problems, the chaser must embark …

Model-Based Framework For On-Board-Software, Frank Flederer, Sergio Montenegro

Small Satellite Conference

Satellites carry different payloads, but the basic design in hard- and software is generally similar for small satellites. For example, they all receive telecommands, distribute them and generate telemetry packets. Reusing existing components is desirable, especially with limited time and financial budgets. This is where the Corfu comes in, which we present in this work.

Corfu is a software framework for safety-critical on-board software. It follows a model-based approach. Developers formally define the structure of the software. The software design is app-centric, i.e. on-board software in Corfu is a composition of apps. Apps define a clear communication interface using a …

The Cubesat Assessment And Test (Cat) Program - Missions Operations Evolution, Warren Chen, Kristin Fretz, Annette Mirantes, Ralf Perez, Tim Krueger

Small Satellite Conference

On January 31, 2019, the CubeSat Assessment and Test (CAT) mission deployed from the International Space Station (ISS). The primary objective of the CAT mission is to use two COTS 3U spacecraft to support a communications experiment. CAT completed its primary mission success objectives in two months and continues to collect mission data two years post-launch. After meeting the mission objectives, the focus shifted to increasing data return from the payloads on the two spacecraft with the CAT team working to evolve the mission to continue to maximize its payload data return.

During its initial conception and design, the team …

Earth Through The Eyes Of Napa-1: Commissioning Results And The Next Steps In Cubesat Earth Observation, H. S. B. Brouwer, H. Y. Oei, G. T. Aalbers, L. Garcia, M. Verdugo, D. Cavalli, L. Strobino, T. Cronje

Small Satellite Conference

Disruptive CubeSat technology has brought scientific missions within reach that were previously only achievable through larger spacecraft. Satellite Earth Observation is now the new frontier for governments, private industry, and academia. With the recent launch of the Napa-1 satellite the Royal Thai Airforce (RTAF) has joined the ranks by having its first ever Earth Observation CubeSat in space. Its design, launch, early operations (LEOPS), and commissioning have been carried out by ISISpace, supporting the market’s need for imagery from space.

Napa-1, meaning firmament in Thai, is a 6U CubeSat with the Gecko Imager from SCS Space as its primary payload, …

Flight Operations Of Two Rapidly Assembled Cubesats With Commercial Infrared Cameras: The Rogue-Alpha,Beta Program, Dee W. Pack, Brian S. Hardy, John R. Santiago, David Pietrowski, Jon C. Mauerhan, Paul F. Zittel, Darren W. Rowen, Cameron R. Purcell, Pradeep Thiyanaratnam, Lynette J. Gelinas, Paul K. Su, Joel Gussy, Joseph M. Santiago

Small Satellite Conference

The Aerospace Corporation’s Rogue-alpha, betaprogram, co-funded by the Space and Missile Systems Center’s Development Corps, is a rapid prototyping effort that built and launched two 3-Unit CubeSats equipped with modified commercial IR camera payloads, laser communications and precision pointing capabilities in 18-months. Launched on 2 November 2019, the two spacecraft were released from the ISS Cygnus NG-12 robotic resupply spacecraft on 31 January 2020 into a circular 460-km, 52° inclined orbit. The two Rogue spacecraft are serving as testbeds for studying wide-field-of-view fast-framing imaging, on-orbit stellar calibration techniques for small IR payloads, and associated spacecraft flight operations. Precision pointing is …

Skysat Block 3 Launch Campaign, Lisa Mcgill, Vincent Beukelaers, Addison Faler, Brian Lewis, Joel Mueting, Vishwa Shah

Small Satellite Conference

Planet currently manages the largest commercial fleet in the world with multiple constellations and more than two hundred satellites in active operation. The SkySats are high resolution imaging spacecraft operating in a Low Earth Orbit; their mission is to image the Earth. After the recent launch of six satellites, the SkySat Constellation is complete with a total of twenty one satellites. This ‘block’ of spacecraft launched on two separate launches; it was the most ambitious and challenging set of SkySat launches and commissioning campaigns Planet has executed. The satellites launched into an inclined and extremely low altitude and required a …

Flight Results Of The Attitude Determination And Control System For The Nemo-Hd Earth Observation Microsatellite, Niels Roth, Bryan Johnston-Lemke, Nicolaas Handojo, Simon Grocott, Robert E. Zee, Tomaž Rodič, Ana Urbas, Matevž Bošnak

Small Satellite Conference

NEMO-HD is an Earth observation microsatellite designed and built at the Space Flight Laboratory at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (SFL) in collaboration with the Slovenian Centre of Excellence for Space Sciences and Technologies (SPACE-SI) who owns and operates the spacecraft. The mission was launched successfully into a circular Sun-synchronous orbit with 10:30 LTDN at an altitude of 535 km, aboard the VEGA VV16 mission from French Guiana on September 2, 2020. The primary payload is an optical imager, providing still imagery on its panchromatic (PAN) channel with 2.8 m ground sample distance (GSD), 5.6 m GSD …

Night-Time Color Imaging With High Resolution From A 35 Kg Microsatellite, Shinji Matsuzawa, Takuma Shibata, Tomoya Inakawa, Yoshito Niwa, Nobutada Sako

Small Satellite Conference

Canon Electronics Inc. developed its third microsatellite to demonstrate optical systems and in-house developed components in orbit. The 35 kg microsatellite CE-SAT-IIB can capture night-time color images of moon lit earth surface as well as city lights with a newly-designed camera using an ultra-high sensitivity image sensor developed by Canon. CE-SAT-IIB was launched in October 2020 as a payload on the Rocket LabsElectron15and has been performing experiments to validate optical systems and the bus using in-house components.

CE-SAT-IIB has three types of cameras. The first camera is a 20 cm Cassegrain telescope with the ultra-high sensitivity detector previously described. Exposure …

Comparison Of Bovine Mammary Involution And Intramammary Infections Following Intramammary Treatment With Casein Hydrolysate And Other Conventional Treatments At Dry-Off, Justine E. Britten, Kerry A. Rood, David J. Wilson

Animal, Dairy, and Veterinary Science Student Research

Alternatives to routine antibiotic treatment of dairy cattle during the dry period before their next calving are of interest. This was a preliminary study of whether intramammary infusion of casein hydrolysate, administered alone or combined with standard dry treatment, accelerated the rate of mammary involution early in the dry period. Four treatments were studied in a split udder design. One udder half was assigned a treatment, and the contralateral half was administered dry cow treatment + internal teat sealant as a control. Treatments were casein hydrolysate, casein hydrolysate + dry cow treatment, casein hydrolysate + teat sealant and casein hydrolysate …

Moderate Plant–Soil Feedbacks Have Small Effects On The Biodiversity–Productivity Relationship: A Field Experiment, Josephine Grenzer, Andrew Kulmatiski, Leslie Forero, Anne Ebeling, Nico Eisenhauer, Jeanette Norton

Wildland Resources Student Research

Plant–soil feedback (PSF) has gained attention as a mechanism promoting plant growth and coexistence. However, most PSF research has measured monoculture growth in greenhouse conditions. Translating PSFs into effects on plant growth in field communities remains an important frontier for PSF research. Using a 4-year, factorial field experiment in Jena, Germany, we measured the growth of nine grassland species on soils conditioned by each of the target species (i.e., 72 PSFs). Plant community models were parameterized with or without these PSF effects, and model predictions were compared to plant biomass production in diversity–productivity experiments. Plants created soils that changed subsequent …

Darkcarb: An Innovative Approach To Infrared Imaging, Andrew Haslehurst, Rachel Bird, Trevor Wood, Calem Whiting, Bena Mero, Harbinder Rana, Matt Price, Camilla Weiss, Diego Angarita-James, James Bell, Tasos Matheopoulos, John Gliby, Martin Sweeting

Small Satellite Conference

DarkCarb is a pioneering Earth observation (EO) satellite, under development at SSTL, designed to acquire high resolution Mid Wave Infrared (MWIR) imagery and video from low Earth orbit. The mission will set a precedent in IR performance from a small and capable satellite platform while maintaining the SSTL cost effective approach thereby enabling a spacecraft price which makes building constellations, capable of delivering rapid re-visit and wide area coverage, an attractive and worthwhile commercial investment. The DarkCarb satellite features an innovative low mass and volume MWIR imager which, when combined with the implementation of novel image enhancement algorithms, will achieve …

Dynamically Controlling Image Integration Onboard The Star-Planet Activity Research Cubesat (Sparcs), Tahina Ramiaramanantsoa, Judd Bowman, Evgenya Shkolnik, R.O. Parke Loyd, David R. Ardila, Travis Barman, Christophe Basset, Matthew Beasley, Samuel Cheng, Johnathan Gamaunt, Varoujan Gorjian, Daniel Jacobs, Logan Jensen, April Jewell, Mary Knapp, Joe Llama, Victoria Meadows, Shouleh Nikzad, Sarah Peacock, Paul Scowen, Mark Swain

Small Satellite Conference

The Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS) is a 6U CubeSat astronomical observatory underdevelopment and will be entirely dedicated to the photometric monitoring of the flaring activity of M dwarfs at near-UV (258 nm – 308 nm) and far-UV (153 nm–171 nm) wavelengths. The SPARCS science pay load is composed of a 9-cm telescope that projects a 40’ field-of-view onto two UV-optimized delta-doped charge-coupled devices (CCDs), which are controlled by a dedicated payload processor board. Given that M dwarf flares in the UV are expected to be capable of reaching amplitudes ∼14,000 times above their quiescent flux, with durations that …

The Pandora Smallsat: Multiwavelength Characterization Of Exoplanets And Their Host Stars, Elisa V. Quintana, Knicole D. Colón, Greg Mosby, Joshua E. Schlieder, Pete Supsinskas, Jordan Karburn, Jessie L. Dotson, Thomas P. Greene, Christina Hedges, Dániel Apai, Thomas Barclay, Jessie L. Christiansen, Néctor Espinoza, Susan E. Mullally, Emily A. Gilbert, Kelsey Hoffman, Veselin B. Kostov, Nikole K. Lewis, Trevor O. Foote, James Mason, Allison Youngblood, Brett Morris, Elizabeth R. Newton, Joshua Pepper, Benjamin V. Rackham, Jason F. Rowe, Kevin Stevenson

Small Satellite Conference

Pandora is a SmallSat mission concept, selected as part of NASA’s Astrophysics Pioneers Program, designed to study the atmospheres of exoplanets using transmission spectroscopy. Transmission spectroscopy of transiting exoplanets provides our best opportunity to identify the makeup of planetary atmospheres in the coming decade. Stellar brightness variations due to star spots, however, can seep into these measurements and contaminate the observed spectra. Pandora is designed to disentangle star and planet signals in transmission spectra and reliably characterize the planetary atmospheres. Pandora will collect long-duration photometric observations with a visible-light channel, and simultaneous spectra with a near-IR channel, where water is …

Liciacube Mission: The Fastest Fly-By Ever Done By A Cubesat, V. Marchese, N. R. Benigno, S. Simonetti, E. Fazzoletto, F. Miglioretti, V. Di Tana, Simone Pirrotta, Marilena Amoroso, Elizabetta Dotto, Vincenzo Della Corte

Small Satellite Conference

As SmallSats are gathering an ever-increasing importance for all types of space missions, they are asked more often to operate in harshest environments and to complete the most complex tasks. One of these demanding technical challenges arises in the frame of the planetary defense. Space missions towards asteroids have garnered the due attention in recent years and, in this regard, NASA has developed the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, in which the Italy will lend its contribution. While DART acts as a kinetic impactor deflecting the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos, the moon of the targeted binary system Didymos, …

Imaging X-Ray Polarimeter Explorer Systems Engineering Approach And Implementation, William D. Deininger, William Kalinowski, Grant Hibbard, Christopher Boree, Kevin Ferrant, Tyler Maddox, Colin Peterson, Benjamin Garelick, William Painter, Scott Mitchell, Spencer Antoniak, Ron Mize, Allyn Tennant, Brian Ramsey, Amy Walden, Alessio Trois, Michele Pinchera, Ettore Del Monte, Darren Osborne

Small Satellite Conference

The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) is a NASA Small Explorer x-ray astrophysics mission being implemented by a geographically dispersed team. Each IXPE partner provides unique capabilities and experience which are utilized to design, build and launch the IXPE observator. A rigorous and iterative systems engineering approach is essential to ensuring the successful realization of reliable and cost effective IXPE mission system. The IXPE collaboration and observatory complexity provide both unique challenges and advantages for project systems engineering. The project uses established and tailored systems engineering (SE) methods and teaming approaches to achieve the IXPE mission goals. The IXPE systems …

Lunar Volatile And Mineralogy Mapping Orbiter (Vmmo): Viable Science From Lunar Cubesats, Samantha Rowe, Roman Kruzelecky, Piotr Murzionak, Ian Sinclair, Michel Corriveau, Roger Walker, Johan Vennekens, Yang Gao, Chris Bridges, Nicola Baresi, Andrea Lucca Fabris, Edward Cloutis, Amélie St-Amour, Nuno Silva, Mauro Gameiro

Small Satellite Conference

The Volatile and Mineralogy Mapping Orbiter (VMMO) is a low-cost 12U CubeSat concept that was originally selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) as one of the two winners of the 2018 SysNova Challenge. The VMMO spacecraft will carry out a volatiles and mineralogical survey of the lunar South Pole permanently shadowed regions using the Lunar Volatile and Mineralogy Mapper (LVMM) multi-wave chemical Lidar payload to detect and map volatiles and other resources such as ilmenite (FeTiO₃) down to a Ground Sample Distance (GSD) of approximately 100m. The exploitation of valuable lunar resources, such as water ice and …

The World’S First Commercial Debris Removal Demonstration Mission, Gene Fujii, Seita Iizuka, Carolyn Belle, Mark Muktoyuk

Small Satellite Conference

Since the launch of Sputnik in 1957, the orbital environment has become increasingly congested. Of the 5,550 satellites currently orbiting the Earth, only 2,700 are operational, and they are joined in orbit by millions of objects of space debris. Astroscale has developed a robotic servicing spacecraft and suite of technology to address this challenge by removing debris and defunct satellites from orbit; the smallsat servicer mission End-of-Life Services by Astroscale-demonstration (ELSA-d) launched on March 22, 2021, will demonstrate these new and innovative space debris docking and removal technologies on orbit. The ELSA-d mission includes both a smallsat servicer …

Capstone: A Cubesat Pathfinder For The Lunar Gateway Ecosystem, Thomas Gardner, Brad Cheetham, Alec Forsman, Cameron Meek, Ethan Kayser, Jeff Parker, Michael 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 in the next few years, 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 the numerous spacecraft in the cislunar environment to navigate autonomously and …

A Sat-To-Sat Inspection Demonstration With The Aerocube-10 1.5u Cubesats, Joseph W. Gangestad, Catherine C. Venturini, David A. Hinkley, Garrett Kinum

Small Satellite Conference

In the summer of 2020, the pair of AeroCube-10 1.5U CubeSats completed a series of mutual proximity operations as close as 22 meters separation and captured several sets of satellite-to-satellite resolved imagery, inspecting all faces of a vehicle in each pass with a resolution less than 8 mm. AeroCube-10 was designed and built by The Aerospace Corporation with the primary missions of atmospheric science and the maturation of nanosatellite technologies, including a new star tracker design, warm-gas propulsion system, GPS receiver, and a low-noise focal plane. Investigating the possibility of using CubeSats for satellite inspection missions, the AeroCube-10 team designed …

Autonomous Planning System (Aps) For An Onboard Tcped Pipeline, Ken Center, Ella Herz, Evan Sneath, Sam Gagnard, Robert Glissmann, Rey Juarez, Neil Dhingra

Small Satellite Conference

As satellites and spacecraft grow in number and operate farther from Earth, there is an emerging need for increased autonomy via onboard decision making that is independent of ground stations but allows for collaboration between teams of assets. Such autonomy will relieve the burden on human operators, enable faster responses to dynamic events, and reduce communications between orbital assets and ground stations. Orbit Logic’s Autonomous Planning System (APS) is flexible and customizable onboard software that enables teamed autonomy through the use of Tasking, Collection, Processing, Exploitation, and Dissemination (TCPED) pipelines onboard the satellites. Its small computational/memory footprint makes it especially …

Design And Testing Of Autonomous Distributed Space Systems, Nicholas Cramer, Daniel Cellucci, Caleb Adams, Adam Sweet, Mohammad Hejase, Jeremy Frank, Richard Levinson, Sergei Gridnev, Lara Brown

Small Satellite Conference

Distributed Space Systems (DSS) are an emerging class of mission designs that enable new scientific and commercial opportunities. In order to enable those new opportunities, these systems will need to have significantly expanded autonomous capabilities compared to their single-spacecraft predecessors. In this paper, we present Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy (DSA) project, a payload on NASA’s Starling spacecraft experiment. We first describe a step-by-step process for characterizing what features are needed in an autonomous DSS, and show how this process applied to DSA. We then describe the Starling mission, a four-spacecraft swarm hosting multiple DSS payloads. We then describe DSA, which will …

An Ai-Based Goal-Oriented Agent For Advanced On-Board Automation, Christian Cardenio, Lorenzo Feruglio, Alessandro Benetton, Mattia Varile, Temenuzhka Valentinova Avramova

Small Satellite Conference

In the context of fierce competition arising in the space economy, the number of satellites and constellations that will be placed in orbit is set to increase considerably in the upcoming years. In such a dynamic environment, raising the autonomy level of the next space missions is key to maintaining a competitive edge in terms of the scientific, technological, and commercial outcome.

We propose the adoption of an AI-based autonomous agent aiming to fully enable spacecraft’s goal-oriented autonomy. The implemented cognitive architecture collects input starting from the sensing of the surrounding operating environment and defines a low-level schedule of tasks …

Constellation Modelling, Performance Prediction And Operations Management For The Spire Constellation, Jeroen Cappaert, Frantisek Foston, Pablo Sierra Heras, Barry King, Nick Pascucci, Jordan Reilly, Conor Brown, Joey Pitzo, Marcus Tallhamm

Small Satellite Conference

The operational complexity of managing the Spire constellation continually increases with the routine introduction of additional satellites and new capabilities. The heterogeneous nature of the satellites, payloads, and ground station configurations compounds the difficulty of strategic planning and operational scheduling. In order to efficiently operate this diverse network of assets, Spire developed a suite of bespoke constellation modeling and management tools that are designed to support existing demand and to scale for future needs. The modeling tools enable Spire to accurately simulate and optimize the performance of various constellation configurations prior to deployment. The operational tools required to harness the …

Sagittarius A* Small Satellite Mission: Capabilities And Commissioning Preview, Caleb Royer, Mike Renner, Owen Brown, Robert Polutchko, Paul Bains, Sam Gagnard, Alex Herz, Mark Mason, Nick Stanley, John Eterno

Small Satellite Conference

SSCI is leading a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)-funded team launching a mission in June 2021, dubbed Sagittarius A*, to demonstrate key hardware and software technologies for on-orbit autonomy, to provide a software testbed for on-orbit developmental test & autonomous mission operations, and to reduce risk for future constellation-level mission autonomy and operations. In this paper, we present the system CONOPs and capabilities, system architectures, flight and ground software development status, and initial commissioning status. The system will fly on Loft Orbital’s YAM-3 shared LEO satellite mission, and includes SSCI’s onboard autonomy software suite running on an Innoflight CFC-400 …

Public Perception Of Uas And Vertiports In The Wastach Front Survey Results, Brent C. Chamberlain, Katelynn Hall, Keunhyun Park

Browse all Datasets

This project aims to further understand the current public perception of UAS and their integration into residential areas for package delivery through the development of vertiports The survey also aims to identify evidence of NIMBY (not in my backyard) in these perceptions. The survey specifically asked participants about demographics, familiarity with UAV, perceptions of UAV, and perceptions of vertiports through 6 different potential vertiport placements in residential of community center focused areas.

Mission Utility-Based Smallsat Design Considerations, Anna Lawitzke, Katherine Mulvaney, Emily Macanlis, Gordon Wu, Jacob Griesbach

Small Satellite Conference

SmallSat’s offer low-cost solutions to traditionally high cost, high SWaP mission areas including GEOINT, space domain awareness (SDA), and science missions. While initial engineering may offer intriguing cost vs. performance value, it is important to evaluate space vehicle and payload interactions in order to understand their impact on overall on-orbit mission performance. Many space vehicle and payload desires are in direct conflict and require careful allocation, requirement management and performance evaluation to ensure the SmallSat offering lives up to its mission goals. Lessons learned from large satellite design can be directly applied to SmallSats, while allowing flexibility to meet the …

Janus And Lunar Trailblazer: Lockheed Martin Deep Space Smallsats For Nasa Simplex Missions, Joseph Shoer, Joshua B. Hopkins, Edward B. Bierhaus

Small Satellite Conference

NASA’s Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) program is a principal investigator-led planetary science program focusing on small spacecraft. In the SIMPLEx-2 opportunity, the cost cap for SIMPLEx missions is approximately 1/10th the cost of the next larger class of planetary exploration missions, the Discovery Program. Unlike Discovery missions, SIMPLEx missions launch as rideshare payloads with other NASA primary missions. Lockheed Martin has developed a science-capable deep space small spacecraft architecture to support two missions selected for the SIMPLEx-2 opportunity: Janus and Lunar Trailblazer. Janus is a two-spacecraft mission to fly by two different binary Near Earth Asteroids, partnered …

Attitude And In-Orbit Residual Magnetic Moment Estimation Of Small Satellites Using Only Magnetometer, Raunak Srivastava, Roshan Sah, Kaushik Das

Small Satellite Conference

Attitude estimation or determination is a fundamental task for satellites to remain effectively operational. This task is furthermore complicated on small satellites by the limited space and computational power available on-board. This, coupled with a usually low budget, restricts small satellites from using high precision sensors for its especially important task of attitude estimation. On top of this, small satellites, on account of their size and weight, are comparatively more sensitive to environmental or orbital disturbances as compared to their larger counterparts. Magnetic disturbance forms the major contributor to orbital disturbances on small satellites in Lower Earth Orbits (LEO). This …

Smallsat Images Need "Closed-Form Method For Atmospheric Correction" (Cmac), David Groeneveld, Tim Ruggles, Nahid Hasan, M. M. Farhad, Iftekhar Chowdhury, Mahi Uddin, Neha Khadka

Small Satellite Conference

A new method to correct any satellite to surface reflectance is undergoing completion to be ready for commercial release in two years. The method applies a conceptual model based on observations of the change in reflectance caused by atmospheric transmission and uses only scene statistics to correct images in near real-time.