Digital Commons Network^™

Odin: Optomechanical Distributed Instrument For Inertial Sensing And Navigation, Mohanad Warrayat, Jackson Dahn, Ramses Miranda, Andrea Nelson, Jeremiah Stoddart, Miguel Dovale, Jose Sanjuan, Felipe Guzman, Daniel Selva

Small Satellite Conference

ODIN (Optomechanical Distributed Instrument for Inertial sensing and Navigation) is a gyroscope-free inertial measurement unit based on a cube of six monolithic fused silica wafers which complete a twelve-axis sensing capability, i.e., three linear, three angular, and six centripetal acceleration measurements. ODIN will fly as a secondary payload on the GRATTIS (Gravitational Reference Advanced Technology Test in Space) mission, slated for launch in February of 2027, led by the University of Florida and funded by the NASA InVEST program. By the end of the GRATTIS mission, it is expected that ODIN will reach an exit TRL-7.

The primary objective of …

The Pandora Smallsat: Overview Of The First Six Months In Orbit, Jessie Dotson, Elisa Quintana, Knicole Colón, Thomas Barclay, Christina Hedges, Ben Hord, Trevor Foote, Jordan Karburn, Pete Supsinkas, Lance Simms, Joe Renaud, Julie Moquin

Small Satellite Conference

The Pandora SmallSat was selected as an inaugural NASA Astrophysics Pioneers mission. The Astrophysics Pioneers program is tasked with performing compelling astrophysics science at lower cost while simultaneously providing space mission experience to early career researchers and engineers. The science goal of Pandora is to study transiting exoplanets and their host stars by collecting long duration, simultaneous visible photometry and near-infrared spectroscopy. This unique dataset will enable Pandora to disentangle the contributions from stellar activity which contaminate the exoplanet spectrum so we can search for water in exoplanet atmospheres.

The Pandora SmallSat successfully launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base on …

Esa Scout Hydrognss Early Mission Results, Martin Unwin, Alex Da Silva Curiel, Ben Stern, Jean-Pascal Lejault, Nazzareno Pierdicca

Small Satellite Conference

The ESA Scout HydroGNSS mission demonstrates a new generation of GNSS reflectometry (GNSS R) capabilities for hydrological climate monitoring from small satellites. HydroGNSS measures soil moisture, freeze–thaw state, inundation, wetlands and above ground biomass by exploiting both traditional incoherent Delay Doppler Maps (DDMs) and several innovative signal types not previously available from spaceborne GNSS R missions. Early in orbit results confirm successful acquisition of signals from Galileo, dual polarisation measurements, coherent complex channel data and reflections at the second GNSS frequency (L5/E5a). These enhanced measurements exhibit stronger than predicted performance and are expected to significantly improve retrievals of climate relevant …

Faculty Senate Executive Committee Agenda August 24, 2026, Utah State University

Faculty Senate & Faculty Senate Executive Committee

3:00 Call to Order

Approval of Minutes - April 13, 2026

3:05 University Business

3:20 Faculty Senate Business

3:35 Reports

EPC Annual Report

Empowering Teaching Excellence

Center for Instructional Design and Innovation

4:00 Additional Business

Adjourn: 4:30 pm

Wildfires And Adolescent Mental Health: A Call To Action, Troy Allan

All Current Publications

Although wildfires affect people across the lifespan, adolescents warrant focused attention because wildfires can disrupt several systems that are especially important during this developmental period, including family relationships, peer networks, schools, routines, housing stability, and a developing sense of safety and identity. This fact sheet provides an overview of current research and a practical response pathway for professionals and families.

New Frontiers In Diagnosing Equine Lameness, Hyrum Hoopes, Karl Hoopes

All Current Publications

Lameness is one of the most common and expensive health problems seen in horses. Modern technology allows veterinarians to look beneath the surface. Tools such as artificial intelligence (AI), computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), digital radiography (X-rays), nuclear scintigraphy, ultrasound, and positron emission tomography (PET) give clearer, more detailed pictures of what’s happening inside the horse’s leg. Each technology offers different advantages, from identifying uneven movement to revealing hidden damage within bones, joints, or soft tissues. When combined with veterinary visual evaluation, they help pinpoint the cause of lameness faster and more accurately than ever before.

Comparison Of Cubesat And Pocketqube Mission Timelines And Costs, Benjamin Skinner, Brian Damitz, Nathan Ford, Brian Iverson, David Long

Small Satellite Conference

PocketQube missions promise to reduce costs, speed up development timelines, and increase pedagogical value. We compared this mission format to CubeSat mission to compare relative strengths and weaknesses.

Advanced Ai Deployment On Smallsats: A Mixed Precision Approach To Onboard Perception And Fpga-Gated Inference, Margaret Michelsen, Jackson Gardner, Shawn Jones, Jackson Kulik, Mario Harper

Small Satellite Conference

MOTIVATION:

SmallSats are asked to make time-sensitive calls (vessel detection, cloud filtering, debris tracking) but CubeSat-class compute is starved for power, memory, and radiation-tolerant silicon.

Most missions still downlink raw imagery for ground processing, costing hours-to-days of latency and scarce bandwidth. Running inference onboard means solving two separate problems:

• When to run inference: compute and power budgets can’t tolerate a neural network firing on every frame.
• Whether it fits when it does run: the model has to live inside a memory and compute envelope measured in megabytes, not gigabytes.

Tracking Assembly For The Pulse-A Optical Ground Station, Rodrigo Spinola E Castro, Ashley Ashiku, Elizabeth Rosario, Juan Ignacio Prieto Asbun, Robert Pitu, Tian Zhong

Small Satellite Conference

PULSE-A is the University of Chicago’s student-led 3U CubeSat mission to demonstrate a space-to-ground optical downlink at a data rate of 1 to 10 Mbps using circular polarization shift keying (CPolSK).

A Cubesat-Based Data Collection Architecture For The Catarina Constellation: Complementing Legacy Brazilian Data Collection System With Lora, Vitória Beatriz Bianchin, Carlos Augusto Porto Freitas, João Cláudio Elsen Barcellos, Gabriel Mariano Marcelino, Talita Sauter Possamai, Eduardo Augusto Bezerra

Small Satellite Conference

• The Catarina Constellation is a Brazilian CubeSat initiative created to enhance environmental monitoring and satellite-based environmental data collection across Brazil.
• The project was named after Hurricane Catarina (2004), the first recorded hurricane in the South Atlantic, which exposed the need for improved space-based monitoring of extreme weather events.
• The constellation aims to expand the Brazilian Satellite Data Collection System (SBCD) by evaluating new communication technologies, enabling a gradual modernization of the country’s environmental monitoring infrastructure.

Cubesats For Climate Change Monitoring (C3m): Demonstrating Interferometric Ir Payloads Scalable To Constellations, Miguel Nunes, Paul Lucey, Noah Thompson, Jharrell Sim, Samantha Mallari, Dennis Sarsozo Jr., Junjie Huang, Jaycee Hasegawa, Mari Murillo

Small Satellite Conference

• Project Objective: Develop a compact, low-power IR spectrometer for a modular 1U CubeSat.
• Mission Motivation: Enable timely monitoring of climate hazards, wildfires, volcanic activity, and greenhouse gases.
• Core Demonstration: Validated end-to-end integration and operation of a thermal IR payload on the Artemis CubeSat Kit.
• Constellation Vision: Establish a scalable, low-cost architecture for high-revisit climate monitoring.

Power Simulation Framework For Korucusat-2 Using Freeflyer, Sahil Singh, Annabel Rong, Mukund Karthikeyan

Small Satellite Conference

A FreeFlyer-based power simulation was developed for KORUCUSAT-2, a low Earth orbit CubeSat designed to monitor silicon-anode battery behavior in space. The spacecraft model uses body-mounted solar panels with five modules on each of the +X, -X, +Y, and -Y faces. The simulation integrates orbital propagation, Earth shadowing, Sun-incidence angle, ground-station visibility, mode-dependent subsystem loads, and battery-state propagation to estimate electrical margin. Battery watt-hours and normalized state of charge are updated at each 30 s step so that critical, low-power, operations, and transmission modes can be evaluated against stored-energy limits. The framework provides a traceable prelaunch test bench for power-system …

Toward Plug-And-Play Sensor Integration: A Multi-Protocol Hardware Bridge For Nanosatellites, Pawan Kumar, Moritz P. Heimbach, Shayarrn Khatiwada, Jiten Thapa, Marco Schmidt

Small Satellite Conference

COTS sensors speak many protocols; but the satellite bus understands only a few. An FPGA hardware bridge board reroutes heterogeneous sensor protocols (UART, SPI, RS-422, RS-485) to the single communication channel with minimum latency supporting plug-and-play with no bus redesign.

A Proposed Development Process For A Hardware-In-The-Loop Testing System For Cubesat Components, Vahini N. Patel, Victoria Coverstone

Small Satellite Conference

Hardware-in-the-loop testing systems, commonly known as FlatSats, are testbed systems in which spacecraft subsystems, such as the onboard computer (OBC), power system, attitude determination and control system (ADCS), and communications, are laid flat and interconnected as they would be in an actual spacecraft. This arrangement gives easy access to each subsystem, enabling hardware and software testing and troubleshooting without risking fully assembled flight hardware.

FlatSats are widely used throughout the aerospace industry, from government agencies like ESA and NASA to private companies and university research labs, due to their versatility in enabling parallel development. This accelerates timelines and reduces …

Helio: Ai Solar Weather Forecasting For Proactive Small Satellite Constellation Response, Kylie Nager, James Kirk, Cagri Kilic

Small Satellite Conference

Challenge:

Small satellite constellations in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) operate in an environment directly exposed to space weather while providing communications, remote sensing, positioning, and other critical services. Geomagnetic storms heat and expand the thermosphere, increasing neutral density, atmospheric drag, and orbital decay. These effects are especially hazardous during post-deployment and orbit-raising operations when satellites remain at low altitude with limited propulsion and recovery margins.

Operational Gap:

NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center products provide essential situational awareness, but satellite operators must still translate environmental forecasts into spacecraft-specific decisions. This translation can introduce operational delay particularly when protective actions must be …

Measuring Space Weather Through Nitrogen-Vacancy Diamond Quantum Magnetometry: A Cubesat Mission Exploration, Patrick Bailey, Alberto Diaz, Jacob Boutin, Austin Downey, Wout De Backer

Small Satellite Conference

1. The Challenge

• Solar weather is constantly changing with adverse effects on earth and the space around it
• Solar flares cause communication blackouts
• Coronal mass ejections can damage satellite hardware, and cause geomagnetic induced currents that can damage the power grid
• Difficult to measure these effects in real-time

Micro-Servicer Swarms For Responsive Smallsat Sustainment: The Sdaw Mothership Architecture, Wanjiku Chebet Kanjumba

Small Satellite Conference

The Challenge:

Sustaining The Mega-Constellation Era: LEO has shifted from a sparse domain into critical global infrastructure. With thousands of satellites on-orbit and tens of thousands more planned, sustainability is no longer guaranteed by launch activity alone; it depends on the ability to service, repair, and responsibly dispose of assets at scale.

• 7,500+ operational satellites in LEO (2024); 50,000+ projected within a decade
• 1,500+ trackable fragments from the 2021 Russian ASAT test; 1,700+ Starlink avoidance maneuvers followed
• ≥ 5 / yr large debris objects removed from LEO yearly to stabilize it (Liou & Johnson)

The Servicing Gap: MEV, OSAM-1, and …

Minimum Variable Speed Control Moment Gyros (Vscmg) Cluster Sizing For Full Three-Axis Smallsat Attitude Control: A Numerical Study, Khang Nguyen, Christopher Damaren

Small Satellite Conference

Small satellites demand high-resolution imaging, optical inter-satellite links, precision science — demand agile, accurate attitude control under tight mass, volume, and power.

Momentum-exchange actuators are the standard propellant-free solution:

• Reaction wheels: precise, but low torque authority
• CMGs: high torque, but singularity-prone
• VSCMGs: variable wheel speed and gimbal angle → high torque, added DOFs for singularity avoidance, dual RW/CMG operation

The gap: VSCMG research has focused on 4-unit pyramid clusters, whose redundancy costs actuator count, volume, and power — resources SmallSats can least afford. The minimum cluster size for practical three-axis control is not well established.

Mission-Driven System-Level Design Of A 1u-Constrained Reaction Wheel Assembly For Agile Cubesat Missions, Xixi Zhang, Ghadi M. Al-Amer, Teef A. Alharthi, Yaqin Saada, Shouq J. Alabdullah, Fadil M. Younes, Atif Mahmood, Ayman M. Abadallah

Small Satellite Conference

Mission need:

Single-pass multi-strip imaging compresses repeated retargeting and settling into a 3- 4 min imaging window.

Relative Position Determination For Satellite Formation Flying Using Radio-Wave Strength Considering Antenna Deformation, Sho Watanabe, Takaya Inamori, Yosuke Kawabata

Small Satellite Conference

Background:

Increasing use of formation flying in space missions:

• Requires formation establishment and maintenance
• Relative orbit determination is essential

Conventional Methods

• Camera
• Laser
• GNSS

Large size and mass are mostly required

Depends on the orbit and satellite attitude

Using received signal strength can overcome these limitations.

Lighting Up The Moon: A Scheduling Framework For Cislunar Space Based Solar Power Orchestration, Vaibhav Bhosale, Andrew Woo, Ada Gavrilovska, Christopher R. Valenta, Ketan Bhardwaj

Small Satellite Conference

Surviving the Lunar Night

• 14 Earth day lunar nights
• More batteries, more mass, higher cost

An Open-Source Gps Simulator For Small Satellites In Low Earth Orbit, Marc Oger, Ada Li, Yousif Elwishahy, Ari Cholakian, Max Xiang, Warrick Lo, David G. Michelson

Small Satellite Conference

Small Earth-observation satellites, such as the University of British Columbia's upcoming ALEASAT mission, require accurate knowledge of their orbital position so that they can target specific locations on the globe as required by the needs of their users while avoiding restricted areas as required by government regulations.

Design Improvement And Performance Demonstration Of A Six-Degree-Of-Freedom Thrust Measurement System For High-Precision Formation Flying Missions, Daigo Takasaki, Isamu Moriai, Ten Arai, Kenshin Yamakawa, Keisuke Yorita, Hiroyuki Koizumi, Kimiya Komurasaki

Small Satellite Conference

A six-degree-of-freedom (6-DoF) elastic pendulum thrust stand has been developed for comprehensive measurement of thrust and torque generated by micro-propulsion systems for future formation flying missions. This paper presents ongoing design improvements to the thrust stand, including the introduction of laser-scale displacement sensors and a supported mass design analysis. The analysis considered suspension spring stiffness, spring extension, and vacuum-chamber dimensional constraints. The results indicate that the proposed sensor configuration provides sufficient measurement resolution throughout the investigated design space, while the primary design constraints arise from suspension spring extension and equilibrium spring length. The analysis also provides design guidelines for supporting …

Design And Validation Of A Modular Cubesat Framework For In-Space Assembly, Michael Kuhl, Jonah Goldstein, Kerri Cahoy

Small Satellite Conference

On-orbit assembly enables modular, adaptable satellite architectures that bypass traditional launch volume and deployment response-time constraints. The Orbital Locker (ORLO) project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology explores this shift in space operations with a prototype-scale demonstration. Standardized satellite sub-U modules are stored within a free-flying mothercraft and assembled on demand by an onboard Cartesian gantry robot, which electrically and mechanically mates the modules into complete 1U and 2U CubeSats as a prototype-scale demonstration. Once assembled, the CubeSat is electrically verified and deployed from the mothercraft into its target orbit.

The ORLO prototype integrates a locker frame, Cartesian gantry robot, …

Design Of A Passive Magnetic Bearing Reaction Wheel For Smallsats And Its Micro-Vibration Performance, Mante Baekeland, Konstantinos Gryllias, Dirk Vandepitte, Cedric Cuypers, Niel Deckers, Tjorven Delabie, René Seiler

Small Satellite Conference

Reaction wheels are a primary source of micro-vibrations aboard satellite platforms, limiting the fine-pointing capability of spacecraft. This paper presents a novel passive magnetic bearing reaction wheel featuring a magnetic–mechanical suspension to reduce operational vibration emissions compared with conventional ball bearing systems. The proposed suspension architecture combines radial permanent magnetic bearings with an axial single-point-contact ball pivot bearing, resulting in a compact, fully passive solution tailored for the SmallSat market. To demonstrate the feasibility of the concept, a hardware prototype was manufactured and tested. Stable operation is achieved across the full operational range up to 4800 rpm. The experimental campaign …

Analysis Of Satellite Drag, Orbit Tracking, And Associated Operational Impacts In Very Low Earth Orbit (Vleo), Angela Crews, Adrian Bryant, Nicholas Ratajczyk, Alec Yenawine, Conor Benson, Chris Roseman, Sara Swenson, Greg Furlich, Rick Marcusen, Sierra Flynn, Chris Pankratz, Scott Palo, Iain Boyd, Marcin Pilinski

Small Satellite Conference

Large constellations of SmallSats in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) are now delivering critical capabilities for missions in Earth observation, navigation, and communications. Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO), defined here as below 400 km altitude, is emerging as a new frontier for SmallSat constellations due to its unique advantages. VLEO offers improved spatial resolution for Earth observations, reduced latency, increased signal power, and a naturally self-cleaning orbital environment. However, operating spacecraft in VLEO is non-trivial as the spacecraft must overcome the residual atmosphere at these altitudes and the resulting increase in aerodynamic drag and atomic oxygen fluence. As interest grows in …

Engineering Model Development Of The Micro Solar Sail Pieris: Single-Motor External-Torque Control And High-Accuracy Sail-Shape Realization, Yusuke Arai, Yusei Kawaguchi, Toshihiro Chujo, Kei Watanabe, Yuki Amaki, Kenichiro Takahashi, Eima Zamami, Kota Saito, Kotaro Yamauchi, Yuya Shiraishi, Shoma Abe, Kenshi Hatada, Moe Yasuda, Sota Sato, Shohei Yamasaki, Matsukawa Ohma, Yota Nakazaki, Hiroki Tanaka, Hisanobu Nomura, Katei Fu, Sora Masaki, Naoya Yamada, Hideo Yoshida, Gen Nakayama, Soma Mori, Takehisa Wada, Takashi Tomura, Hiroki Nakanishi, Yoichi Yatsu, Yasuyuki Miyazaki, Omura Soma, Go Morita, Momoko Fukunaga, Hiroyuki Ono, Takeru Nakamura

Small Satellite Conference

The 40-kg class micro solar sail “PIERIS,” equipped with a 25 m² reflective membrane, will be launched in 2027. This paper explains PIERIS’s mission design, the unique challenges of this satellite system and their solutions, and the current development status. PIERIS will be launched into LEO at approximately 600 km altitude to demonstrate two novel technologies for addressing significant disturbance torques acting on its large membrane surface.

First, it will demonstrate a technology that actively adjusts the offset between the center of action of external torques and the satellite's center of mass to control these torques. PIERIS connects the bus …

Flight Path: A Microservices Message-Passing Flight Software Architecture For Cesiumastro Element One Satellite, Dylan Pfeifer, Russell Gleason, Nick Bourdon, David Gholami, Daniel Zilavy, Dan Barrera, John Storey

Small Satellite Conference

The CesiumAstro Element One Satellite, designed for multi-band phased array communications in Low Earth Orbit, required a new approach to satellite flight software. The variety of new devices on the satellite bus, fast-paced development schedule, and combination of in-house and purchased subsystems required flight software to incorporate a mixture of programming languages, a mixture of open source and proprietary software, and a pairing of high Technology Readiness Level (TRL) frameworks with new, first-flight software. To achieve integration, assembly, and test on compressed schedule, the flight software paradigm focused on microservices-brokered access to hardware and a message-passing based coordination between software …

Mirzo Ulugbek 6u Cubesat: Modular Structural Design, Analysis, And Ait For Earth Observation Mission Deployment, Hery Steven Mindarno, Louis Alferd Gauvain Lefort, Khabibullokh Olimjon Ugli Azimjonov, Iwase Tomoya, Aashish Sarode, Chinathip Narongphun, Reynel Josue Galindo Rosales, Mehmet Esit, Hanadi Abdalla, Kaito Hamada, Victor Schulz, Jose Rodrigo Cordova Alarcon, Hirokazu Masui, Takashi Yamauchi, Necmi Cihan Orger, Kentaro Kitamura, Mengu Cho

Small Satellite Conference

The Mirzo Ulugbek satellite is a 6U CubeSat designed for Earth Observation (EO) and equipped with a high-resolution camera system. Developed in collaboration between the Kyushu Institute of Technology (Kyutech) and the Uzbekistan Space Agency, Mirzo Ulugbek will be deployed directly from a launch vehicle into a Sun-Synchronous Orbit (SSO) to enable continuous Earth observation. This paper presents the modular structural design, analysis, and Assembly, Integration, and Testing (AIT) processes that ensure the satellite’s robustness during launch and reliable operation in orbit. The modular design allows efficient integration, disassembly, and reassembly of subsystems, enhancing flexibility during testing. This design approach …

Tasa Cubesat Constellations For Remote Sensing And Communications As Catalysts For Local Innovation And Global Impact, Chia-Ray Chen, Yu-Tang You, Yu-Wei Chiu, Jeffery Lin, Jay Zheng, Eason Wu, Ching-Yuan Lu, Jacky Li, Benson Lin, Ching-En Lo, Samuel Liu, Larry Hung, Keng Chen, Jhih-Hong Lin, Chih-Chung Chiang, Bo-Chuan Lin, Sheng Hua Chen, Shin Chen, Yu-Hsuan Kuo, Li-Wen Yu, Zu-Hung Kuo, Yi-Hsiang Wang, Yu-Chen Wang, Wei-Chih Su, Cheng-Hung Huang, Heng-Yi Lin, Szu-Hsiang Lai, Chang-Heng Wang, Tun-Yen Wu, Yu-Jiu Wang

Small Satellite Conference

The Startup CubeSat Program is a government-supported initiative established to advance Taiwan’s domestic space industry and strengthen national capabilities in small satellite technologies through close collaboration among academia, industry, research organizations, and the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA). Acting as an incubator framework, the program aims to accelerate technological innovation, promote cost-effective satellite development, and foster a sustainable ecosystem for commercial and scientific space activities. The program consists of three representative missions: a remote sensing mission for ocean color imaging (OCI) and fisheries monitoring, an IoT mission providing Ku-band and LoRa-band connectivity services, and a Ka-band communication mission demonstrating broadband satellite …