Digital Commons Network^™

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.

Development Project Overview For Mep Engine Propulsion System For Small Satellites, Ahmad Al-Hawasli, Graeme Aston

Small Satellite Conference

Ball Aerospace (Ball) and the Electric Propulsion Laboratory, Inc. (EPL) are in partnership to develop a high specific impulse electric propulsion system. The propulsion system is based on EPL’s Magneto-gradient Electrostatic Plasma 650-Watt (MEP 650) engine technology. The goal of the MEP 650 project is to develop a flight-like, engineering model (EM) MEP 650 system that can meet future Ball Small Satellite (SmallSat) mission requirements. These requirements are met by an engine that operates at a discharge power of 650 W in self-heating mode, attains a specific impulse of 1,500 seconds, a thrust of 29 mN, and processes about 7.0 …

Miura 5: The European And Reusable Microlauncher For Cubesats And Small Satellites, Pablo Gallego Sanmiguel

Small Satellite Conference

PLD Space is a European company with the goal of providing easy and frequent access to space. The company aims to provide launch services for suborbital applications such as scientific research or technology development as well as orbital launches for small satellites. For this, PLD Space is developing two dedicated, reusable launch vehicles named MIURA 1 and MIURA 5.

MIURA 1 was conceived as a one-stage suborbital sounding rocket which uses a liquid propulsion system fully designed and built by PLD Space. MIURA 5 –is a two-stages launch vehicle for small satellites with also fully in-house propulsion, structures and avionics …

Satellite Reliability Model Supporting End-Of-Life Operations Success, Anton Roig, Christophe Etcheverry, Karine Etienne

Small Satellite Conference

The increasing number of satellites in orbit and the upcoming deployment of constellations of hundreds of small satellites raises the problem of orbital debris and saturation of main LEO and GEO orbits. Currently, about sixty percent of satellites are deorbited at their end of life, including thirty percent deliberately with a propulsion system. The increase in the number of debris has led to the implementation of preventive and corrective actions at an international level to ensure the availability and safety of these orbits for future space projects. It therefore appears necessary to guarantee with the best estimate possible the operations …

The Fully Automated And Self-Contained Operations Paradigm Of The Csim Mission, Sierra Flynn, Karen Bryant, Emily B. Pilinski, James Paul Mason, Michael Chambliss, Lauren De Moudt, Noah Crisler, Matthew D. Hanley

Small Satellite Conference

The Compact Spectral Irradiance Monitor (CSIM) CubeSat Mission has been collecting solar spectral irradiance (SSI) data for over two years, contributing to 40+ years of multi-mission SSI data collection. CSIM utilizes a fully automated and self-contained operations paradigm developed at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP). LASP efficiently performs the entire operations workflow for CSIM, from planning through data processing, which nominally requires only 15 minutes of staffed operations support per week. Mission operations students at LASP are responsible for the entire planning process. They query for ground station contacts and solar observation times which are input into …

Results From Testing Low-Cost, High-Performance Terrestrial Processors For Use In Low-Cost High-Performance Space Missions, Anita Bernie, Paul Madle, Jamie Bayley, John Paffett, Keith Ryden, Benjamin Clewer, Alex Hands, Chris Bridges

Small Satellite Conference

There has been a significant and exciting increase in the use of microsatellites and cubesats in the past decade.

However, it has proved difficult to scale up current cubesat avionics systems to enable larger, longer, more complex missions, and challenging to scale down traditional microsatellites to an affordable price point. The need exists for a system that provides the capability of a microsatellite at a cubesat cost; KISPE Space (“KISPE”) is developing the Next Generation Microsatellite Platform (“NGMP”) to address this need and is releasing the design as an open source resource via the Open Source Satellite Programme (“OSSAT”)

A …

Development Of A Power-Efficient, Low Cost, And Flash Fpga Based On-Board Computer For Small-Satellites, Anant Kandala, Ankit Verma, Sanidhya Vijaywat, Ansuman Palo, Amal Chandran, Priyadarshnam Hari, Harsha Simha, R. Sudharshan Kaarthik

Small Satellite Conference

On-Board Computers (OBCs) for Small-satellite missions are typically required to be designed using industrial grade Commercial-of-the-shelf (COTS) components due to budget constraints and short mission duration. The OBC must provide a variety of interfaces due to the diverse nature of COTS subsystems having different interface definitions. Traditional OBC designs with standard microcontrollers have fixed interfaces that require modification of the motherboard circuit/layout when the external interfaces require changes. Thus, a possible solution is to have an FPGA in-addition to the micro-controller thereby providing a configurable interface capability. System-on-Chip (SoC) devices that integrate a microcontroller with FPGA fabric provide an ideal …

Online Small-Sat Knowledge Repositories And Modeling Tools For Risk Reduction And Enhanced Mission Success, Arthur Witulski, Brian Sierawski, Gabor Karsai, Nag Mahadevan, Robert Reed, Ronald Schrimpf, Allyson Yarbrough, Neil White, Michael Campola, Rebekah Austin, Michael Johnson, Kaitlyn Ryder, Craig Burkhard, Robbie Robertson

Small Satellite Conference

Developers of small satellites face the challenges of a short development schedule, incomplete information about parts from vendors, and limited budgets. The situation is complicated by the need to use commercial electronic parts rather than radiation hardened parts to meet performance and budget constraints. Fortunately, a number of organizations are standing up new modeling and data resources that are available for free online. Motivation for sharing models, part data, and lessons learned include shorter development times, increased mission success likelihood, and training the next generation of space professionals. The purpose of this paper is to make these resources and their …

Lessons Learned From Aiv In Esa’S Fly Your Satellite! Educational Cubesat Programme, Cristina Del Castillo-Sancho, Gilberto Grassi, Alexander Kinnaird, Aldous Mills, David Palma

Small Satellite Conference

‘Fly Your Satellite!’ (FYS) is a recurring hands-on programme conducted by the ESA (European Space Agency) Academy Unit of ESA’s Education Office. Fly Your Satellite! was established to support university student teams in the development of their own CubeSats by enabling a transfer of knowledge and experience from ESA specialists to students. Selected teams are guided through project reviews and supervised through design consolidation and verification activities, conducted according to ESA professional practice and to standards tailored to fit the scope of university CubeSat projects.

This paper focuses on key lessons learned and issues identified during the ongoing verification activities …

Stp-H7-Caspr: A Transition From Mission Concept To Launch, Noah Perryman, Theodore Schwarz, Thomas Cook, Seth Roffe, Antony Gillette, Evan Gretok, Tyler Garrett, Sebastian Sabogal, Alan George, Ricardo Lopez

Small Satellite Conference

The Configurable and Autonomous Sensor Processing Research (CASPR) project is a university-led experiment developed by student and faculty researchers at the NSF Center for Space, High-performance, and Resilient Computing (SHREC) at the University of Pittsburgh for the Space Test Program – Houston 7 (STP-H7) mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Autonomous sensor processing, the mission theme of the CASPR experiment, is enabled by combining novel sensor technologies with innovative computing techniques on resilient and high-performance flight hardware in a small satellite (SmallSat) form-factor. CASPR includes the iSIM-90, an innovative, high-resolution optical payload for Earth-observation missions developed by SATLANTIS MICROSATS …

Heron: Demonstrating A Novel Biological Platform For Small Satellite Missions, Dylan Vogel, Avinash Mukkala, Kimberly Ren, Lorna Lan, Yong Da Li, Eric Van Velzen, Bruno Almeida, Cassandra Chanen, Adyn Miles, Ali Haydaroglu, Abdullah Gulab, Addy Bhatia, Alejandro Duque, Alireza Nickooie, Ambrose Man, Americo Barros, Amna Zulfiqar, Amy Shi, Ana Quilumbango, Andrew Uderian, Andy Xie, Arash Nourimand, Arfa Saif, Atharva Datar, Atharva Dighe, Aurora Nowicki, Avelyn Wong, Ben Kwashigah, Ben Makarchuk, Benjamin Nero, Et Al.

Small Satellite Conference

Long-duration deep space missions pose a significant health risk for both humans and their resident microorganisms. The GeneSat, PharmaSat and O/OREOS missions have previously explored biological questions regarding the effects of spaceflight on S. cerevisiase, B. subtilis, and E. coli. However, there currently exists both a knowledge and an accessibility gap in small satellite biological experiments. These payloads require precise instrumentation and complex platforms that are usually reserved for large research organizations. This makes it difficult for smaller organizations to perform biological research in low Earth orbit (LEO). To address these challenges, the University of Toronto Aerospace Team …

Integration, Launch, And First Results From Ideassat/Inspiresat-2 - A 3u Cubesat For Ionospheric Physics And Multi-National Capacity Building, Loren C. Chang, Chi-Kuang Chao, Yi-Chung Chiu, Tzu-Ya Tai, Kai-Lun Cheng, Hsin-Tzu Liu, Rong Tsai-Lin, Guan-Po Chiu, Kai-Jye Hou, Pin-An Lin, Ruo-Yu Wang, Yu-Shun Wang, Glen Franco Gacal, Sittinat Denduonghatai, Tsai-Ru Yu, Rafael Yuwei Li, Jann-Yenq Liu, Randson Huang, Amal Chandran, Kashyapa Bramha Naren Athreyas, Priyadarshan Hari, Joji John Varghese, Mustapha Meftah, Rick Kohnert, Wengang Zheng

Small Satellite Conference

The Ionospheric Dynamics and Attitude Subsystem Satellite (IDEASSat) is a 3U CubeSat carrying a Compact Ionospheric Probe (CIP) to detect ionospheric irregularities that can impact the usability and accuracy of global satellite navigation systems (GNSS), as well as satellite and terrestrial over the horizon communications. The spacecraft was developed by National Central University (NCU) in Taiwan, with additional development and operational support from partners in the International Satellite Program in Science and Education (INSPIRE) consortium. The spacecraft system needed to accommodate these mission objectives required three axis attitude control, dual band communications capable of supporting both tracking, telemetry and command …

Model-Based Systems Engineering And F’: Proof Of Concept Via The Creation Of An On-Orbit Textual Command Parsing Component For The Abex Mission, Michael Halvorson, C. J. Short, Austin Bush, Brandon Scruggs, Joshua Lazenby, Sarah Kilgore, Sam Spearman, William Garrison, Paul Poe

Small Satellite Conference

The Alabama Burst Energetics eXplorer (ABEX) mission is defining spacecraft architecture, behavior, mission phases, operational states, risks, and requirements in a Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) Integrated Systems Model (ISM) using SysML in Cameo Enterprise Architecture (CEA). The satellite structural design can be exported from CEA as Extensible Markup Language (XML) specifications and imported to F’, an open-source Flight Software (FSW) framework from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. F’ contains background components intended to be connected to user-defined components in the XML after it is exported from the ISM; in this work, ABEX is representing F’ background components in SysML Internal Block …

Performance Comparison Of Particle Filter In Small Satellite Attitude Estimation, Asma Mohammad Nusrat Aman, Nafizah G. Khan, Gnanam Gnanagurunathan

Small Satellite Conference

The drive towards miniaturization, coupled with the latest advances in onboard processing, has given rise to small satellite missions’ ability to use more complex attitude estimation algorithms to fit their progressive mission requirements. Earth observation missions typically require higher satellite attitude pointing accuracies to precisely control the satellite orientation. Hence, to provide greater confidence in the attitude estimation accuracies, new advanced algorithms are continuously being developed. Satellite attitude estimation must be performed autonomously in real-time whilst optimizing computational resources such as time and memory. Small satellite missions with higher complexities tend to demand more sophisticated requirements, which push the limits …

Connecting Mission Profiles And Radiation Vulnerability Assessment, Richard H. Nederlander, Kaitlyn L. Ryder, Arthur F. Witulski, Gabor Karsai, Nag Mahadevan, Brian D. Sierawski, Ronald D. Schrimpf, Robert A. Reed, Michael J. Campola, Rebekah A. Austin

Small Satellite Conference

Radiation vulnerability assessment early in spacecraft development is cheaper and faster than in late development phases. RGENTIC and SEAM are two software platforms that can be coupled to provide this type of early assessment. Specifically, RGENTIC is a tool that outputs descriptions of radiation risks based on a selected mission environment and the system’s electronic part portfolio, while SEAM models how radiation-induced faults in electronic parts propagate through a system. In this work, we propose a spacecraft evaluation flow where RGENTIC’s outputs, which are radiation vulnerabilities of electronic parts for a given mission, become inputs to SEAM, resulting in an …

The Active Cryocubesat Project: System Modeling And Control Design, Bruno Mattos, Lucas Anderson, Randy Christensen, Charles Swenson

Small Satellite Conference

Utah State University together with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory have been developing new cooling technology for high power CubeSats. This effort has been funded by the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate in an effort to enable CubeSats with extraordinary thermal control needs for subsystems such as computing, telemetry, or cryogenics and where passive techniques are insufficient. The approach is to use a pumped fluid loop to remove heat from an internal heat exchanger and transport it to an external radiator on the CubeSat. Recently, Utah State has thermal vacuum-tested prototype systems collecting significant amounts of data on the thermodynamics …

Total Ionizing Dose Tolerance Of Micro-Sd Cards For Small Satellite Missions, Achal Duhoon, J. R. Dennison, Jordan Lee, Satoshi Takemori, Takahiro Yatabe

Small Satellite Conference

Tests have determined damage thresholds and failure rates as a function of total ionizing dose (TID) of beta radiation for various types of COTS micro-SD cards commonly used for memory storage in space applications. Radiation tolerance of high-density electronics are common critical failure modes for satellites, particularly for small satellites that often use lower shielding and less radiation-hardened COTS components. The tests evaluated SD-card formatting and read/write speeds at nine radiation intervals for up to ~ 1000 Gy TID, equivalent to ~15 times TID typically experienced annually on the unshielded exterior of satellites in Low Earth Orbit. A limited number …

A Raspberry Pi Powered 1u Cubesat, Yang He, Chantale Damas

Small Satellite Conference

The goal for of this project is for students to design and build CubeSat prototypes using commercial-off the-shelf (COTS) components and 3D printing techniques. The CubeSat uses a raspberry Pi as the command and data handling center (CDH). The project includes three phases. The first phase is to develop a FlatSat, test components on a flat surface. The second phase is CubeSat developments which includes the design of structures and assembly. The third phase is data collection and analysis. The GPS module, onboard IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), Camera module and inferred camera module were tested. The experience simulates interacting with …

Ke Ao: A Low-Cost 1u Cubesat For Aerospace Education And Research In Hawaii, Lee Danielle Young, Miguel A. Nunes, A. Zachary Trimble, Christopher Amendola, Aaron Brandt, Hunter Patton, Alexi Perez, Riley Terry, William Tuifua, Douglas Whittingham, Kevin Williams, Amber Imai-Hong

Small Satellite Conference

The Ke Ao satellite is a low-cost 1U CubeSat designed and developed by an undergraduate team of engineering students at the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) in collaboration with the Hawaii Space Flight Laboratory (HSFL). The primary goal of the mission is to take one or more pictures from space and automatically identify the Hawaiian Islands using Machine Learning Algorithms - this will demonstrate improved onboard operational autonomy in space. A secondary goal of this project is to promote Aerospace Education and Workforce training in Hawaii. The Ke Ao project was inspired by the Hiapo CubeSat initiative of the …

Lessons Learned From The Gt-1 1u Cubesat Mission, Maximilian Kolhof, William Rawson, Radina Yanakieva, Andrew Loomis, E. Glenn Lightsey, Sterling Peet

Small Satellite Conference

With more universities conducting low-cost small satellite development programs, resources for students starting off in satellite design are essential to avoid common pitfalls. Hardware integration and testing of the GT-1 CubeSat revealed both design flaws and strengths that led to a comprehensive list of lessons learned applicable to future CubeSat missions at the Georgia Institute of Technology Space Systems Design Laboratory (SSDL) and within the broader academic community. GT-1 was originally slated to be designed, built, and delivered in nine months with an orbital lifespan of around seven months. However, various schedule delays resulted in the mission spanning over two …

Autonomous Fault-Tolerant Avionics For Small Cots Satellites: To Reality And Prototype, Christian M. Fuchs, Nadia M. Murillo

Small Satellite Conference

In this contribution we present practical experiences from realizing a prototype of the first truly fault-tolerant and autonomously operating avionics suite for miniaturized satellite down to the size of a 2U CubeSat. Our initial demonstrator setup consists of a mix of COTS parts and FPGA development boards, which we gradually expanded in scope and capabilities. After four iterations of PCB development and manufacturing, we have condensed this design to a fully integrated custom PCB-based prototype. Our fourth architecture iteration is stackable and is designed to fit on an 80×80mm PCB footprint. It is furthermore capable of operating as generic satellite …

The Gestalt: A Secure, High Performance, Low Cost Satellite Ground Station Architecture And Its Implementation, Jason Lowdermilk, Simha Sethumadhavan

Small Satellite Conference

In this paper we present The Gestalt, a novel security methodology developed with support from the Office of Naval Research for satellite ground stations systems. While security is often a stated priority for these systems, often it is traded off for better performance, lower cost and reduced design complexity.

We identified two main classes of security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by attackers in small-sat systems: 1) intentionally introduced supply chain vulnerabilities in both software and hardware, and 2) inadvertent coding and logic vulnerabilities in code.

Our engineering methodology reduces the risk of attacks through four methods:

1. Debloating: Ground …

Validating Deployment Dynamics Of The Canisterized Satellite Dispenser (Csd), Stephen K. Tullino, Eric D. Swenson, Jessica L. Marshall Tullino

Small Satellite Conference

Planetary Systems Corporation (PSC) designed the CSD to be a more secure, predictable, and consistent CubeSat deployment system. Though the CSD has proven its safety and reliability on orbit and in other air-and ground-based tests, there was still not enough data needed to develop analytical profiles describing CSD deployment angular and linear velocities and accelerations. The goal of this research effort is to first tune a dynamics model using experimental data collected from three sources: (1) PSC’s microgravity deployment tests onboard a C-9 aircraft in 2014; (2) AFIT led lab bench experiments in 2016; and (3) AFRL-AFIT led tests at …

The Aepex Cubesat Mission: Quantifying Energetic Particle Precipitation Through Bremsstrahlung X-Ray Imaging, Grant D. Berland, Robert A. Marshall, Conner Martin, Deven Mhadgut, Joseph Buescher, Richard A. Kohnert, Spencer Boyajian, Christopher M. Cully, Michael P. Mccarthy

Small Satellite Conference

Fundamental gaps exist in the understanding and observation of energetic particle precipitation (EPP),a solar-terrestrial coupling mechanism that is vital for climatelogical modeling of the atmosphere and magnetosphere. The Atmospheric Effects of Precipitation through Energetic X-rays (AEPEX) mission is a 6U CubeSat that will measure energetic electron spectra and X-ray images in order to quantify the spatial scales and amount of energy input into the atmosphere, and therefore lost from the magnetosphere, via EPP. AEPEX includes two instruments; AEPEX’s FIRE (Focused Investigations of Relativistic Electron) instrument (AFIRE), a TRL 9 electron detector previously flown on the FIREBIRD mission; and the Atmospheric …