Digital Commons Network^™

Simulating The Storm Environment Responsible For Nepal's First Observed Tornado, Jonathan David Douglas Meyer, Binod Pokharel, Robert R. Gillies

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

A high-resolution numerical forecast model was used to simulate the meteorological conditions leading up to the March 31st, 2019 severe weather event that produced Nepal's first-ever observed tornado. The sparse meteorologic observations in the region capturing the storm environment limit the ability to anticipate another similar situation should the particular set of conditions present themselves again. This study presents a multifaced view of the storm environment through 1) a synoptic perspective provided by the Global Data Assimilation System (GDAS) reanalysis dataset and 2) a trio of progressively higher resolution one-way nested simulations (12 km–4km–1km) driven by GDAS boundary conditions to …

A Look Into User's Privacy Perceptions And Data Practices Of Iot Devices, Mahdi Nasrullah Al-Ameen, Apoorva Chauhan, M.A. Manazir Ahsan, Huzeyfe Kocabas

Computer Science Student Research

Purpose: With the rapid deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, it has been essential to address the security and privacy issues through maintaining transparency in data practices. The prior research focused on identifying people’s privacy preferences in different contexts of IoT usage, and their mental models of security threats. However, there is a dearth in existing literature to understand the mismatch between user’s perceptions and the actual data practices of IoT devices. Such mismatches could lead users unknowingly sharing their private information, exposing themselves to unanticipated privacy risks. We aim to identify these mismatched privacy perceptions in our work. …

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 …

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; …

Optimal Attitude Guidance For The Exact And Impress Cubesats Using Graph Methods With Pruning, Athanasios Pantazides, Demoz Gebre-Egziabher

Small Satellite Conference

This work demonstrates a high-level mission planning method for maximizing data output from a pair of scientific CubeSat missions. The proposed approach identifies the optimal sequence of attitude maneuvers to perform in order to maximize total downlinked data over the mission, while considering constraints on available power. Many scientific satellite missions consist of at least three target attitudes: pointing solar panels towards the Sun for power, pointing an antenna towards a ground station to transmit data, or pointing a payload towards a point of scientific interest. While careful mechanical design of the mission may enable all three (or more) target …

A Novel Approach To An Autonomous And Dynamic Satellite Control System Using On-Orbit Machine Learning, Maximum Wilder-Smith, Michael Pham, Matteo Gironda, Kevin Kwik, Michael Gee, Ryan Toomer, Samuel Bennett, Nicholas Shewchuk, Ashley Mcbean, Tarek Elsharhawy

Small Satellite Conference

Classical control methods require deep analytical understanding of the system to be successfully controlled. This can be particularly difficult to accomplish in space systems where it is difficult, if not impossible, to truly replicate the operational environment in a laboratory. As a result, many missions, especially in the CubeSat form factor, fly with control systems that regularly fail to meet their operational requirements. Failure of a control system might result in diminished science collection or even a total loss of mission in severe circumstances. Additionally, future SmallSat use cases (such as for orbital debris collection, repair missions, or deep space …

Optimization Of Tcs For Mfs On Smallsat, Sanika Birthi, Indresh Sahu, R. Sriraghu, Siddhesh Naik

Small Satellite Conference

MultiFunctional Structures (MFS) represent a paradigm shift over conventional spacecraft design methods resulting in a considerable reduction in mass, volume, and cost. It involves the integration of multiple subsystems into the structure, thereby providing space for high-performance payload options having higher weight. Thermal management of MFS is catered to by incorporating a high thermal conductivity composite sandwich panel. This is achieved by using high-thermal conductivity (HiK) face sheets made of pitch-based carbon fibers, and HiK core made of additively manufactured Aluminum truss grid. The conduction through the panel is enhanced using a core fill that acts as a thermal link …

Automatic Optical Image Stabilization System Calibration, Validation, And Performance For The Skysat Constellation, Philip Linden, Nicolas Smith, Thomas Rohrbach

Small Satellite Conference

Capturing Earth imagery from low-Earth orbit causes blur from the spacecraft’s orbital motion. Planet’s high resolution SkySat satellites utilize an Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) system to reduce motion blur by mechanical oscillation of the payload assembly. Automated on-orbit procedures and analyses are used for calibration and validation of the system across a fleet of 19 satellites. OIS actuation settings are configured for each image capture through automated optimization procedures. The benefit of the OIS system is demonstrated by an increased collection ground scan rate with no degradation to image quality, thereby improving fleet production capacity of the SkySat constellation.

Temperature Tides Across The Mid-Latitude Summer Turbopause Measured By A Sodium Lidar And Mighti/Icon, Tao Yuan, M. H. Stevens, C. R. Englert, T. J. Immel

All Physics Faculty Publications

Local full diurnal coverage of temperature variations across the turbopause (∼90–115 km altitude) is achieved by combining the nocturnal observations of a Sodium (Na) Doppler lidar on the Utah State University (USU) campus (41.7°N, 248.2°E) and NASA Michelson interferometer for global high-resolution thermospheric imaging (MIGHTI)/Ionospheric connection explorer (ICON) daytime observations made in the same vicinity. In this study, utilizing this hybrid data set during summer 2020 between June 12th and July 15th, we retrieve the temperature signatures of diurnal and semidiurnal tides in this region. The tidal amplitudes of both components have similar vertical variation with increasing altitude: less than …

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 …

In-Orbit Demonstration Of Reaction Control System For Orbital Altitude Change Of Micro-Satellite Ale-2, Yuji Sato, Shinya Fujita, Yoshihiko Shibuya, Toshinori Kuwahara, Koh Kamachi

Small Satellite Conference

This research presents the results of an in-orbit test of the orbital altitude control for a micro-satellite equipped with the first space-demonstrated high-density small cold gas jet thruster. In the field of micro-satellites, the application of thrusters to practical missions has not yet progressed due to their high cost, mechanical and electrical incompatibility with the satellite bus system, and increased operational risks. By contrast, the demand for orbit control functions has been increasing in recent years with the expansion of micro-satellite applications. The76kg satellite "ALE-2", which was jointly developed by Tohoku University and ALE Co., Ltd., has the world's first …

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 …

Nickel Catalyzed Electrochemical C-C Cross-Coupling Reactions, T. Leo Liu

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Mission Concept For Demonstrating Small-Spacecraft True Anomaly Estimation Using Millisecond X-Ray Pulsars, Anant Kandala, Aashka Oza, Bharath Saiguhan, Shreya Mishra, Priyadarshnam Hari, Samir Mandal, Harsh Simha

Small Satellite Conference

Navigation based on X-ray pulsars was first suggested in 1981 for deep space navigation as an alternative to the conventional Deep Space Network (DSN) which is inaccurate at large distances from the Earth. This idea was recently demonstrated using the NICER/SEXTANT instrument onboard the ISS. X-ray pulsar-based navigation is of of great interest as it eliminates the reliance on Earth-based systems, and is yet to be implemented as an autonomous navigation system for deep space missions. For the purpose of navigation, X-ray millisecond pulsars are the most appropriate celestial sources. They emit unique, stable and periodic radiation that exhibits high …

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 …

Mats - The Second Innosat Spacecraft To Launch In 2021, Nils Pokrupa, Ronnie Lindberg

Small Satellite Conference

In 2014 the Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA) initiated the development of a generic microsat platform by Swedish space industry with the ambition to give science and academic institutes recurring launch opportunities every 3-4 years. The program is called the Innovative Research Satellites Programme and the platform is called "Innosat". The program has two overarching goals. The first is to conduct viable, high quality science, and the second is to be able to do this at a relatively low cost to be able to support a recurring programme. The first mission, “Mesospheric Airglow/aerosol Tomography and Spectroscopy” (MATS), has suffered some …

Machine Learning For Early Satellite Anomaly Detection, Pablo Bernal-Mencia, Kelsey Doerksen, Chen Yap

Small Satellite Conference

Despite its recent disruption to many engineering fields, incorporating machine learning into satellite operations is difficult due to the associated performance restrictions with the relatively small amount of available data during a satellite’s operating lifetime; a satellite needs to be operating for several months to years in order to grow a dataset able to be used in machine learning. That is the reason behind its historically limited application to active satellite operations, whereas a posteriori applications to past missions can be found in the literature. Recently however, the eruption of mega-constellations of satellites, whose hardware, software, and orbit are almost …

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 …

Physics-Informed Structure-Preserving Numerical Approximations Of Thermodynamically Consistent Models For Non-Equilibrium Phenomena, Jia Zhao

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Cost Considerations For Estimating Smallsat I&T, Rachel Sholder, Kathy Kha

Small Satellite Conference

In the early phases of project formulation, mission integration and test (I&T) costs are typically estimated via a wrap factor approach, analogies to similar missions adjusted for mission specifics, or a Bottom Up Estimate (BUE). The wrap factor approach estimates mission I&T costs as a percentage of payload and spacecraft hardware costs. This percentage is based on data from historical missions, with the assumption that the project being estimated shares similar characteristics with the underlying data set used to develop the wrap factor. This technique has worked well for traditional spacecraft builds since typically as hardware costs grow, I&T test …

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.

Constellation Design Of Remote Sensing Small Satellite For Infrastructure Monitoring In India, Roshan Sah, Raunak Srivastava, Kaushik Das

Small Satellite Conference

A constellation of remote sensing small satellite system has been developed for infrastructure monitoring in India by using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Payload. The low earth orbit (LEO) constellation of the small satellites is designed in a way, which can cover the entire footprint of India. Since India lies a little above the equatorial region, the orbital parameters are adjusted in a way that inclination of 36 degrees and RAAN varies from 70-130 degrees at a height of 600 km has been considered. A total number of 4 orbital planes are designed in which each orbital plane consisting 3 small …

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 …

Mata-Rl: Continuous Reaction Wheel Attitude Control Using The Mata Simulation Software And Reinforcement Learning, Vanessa Tan, John Leur Labrador, Marc Caesar Talampas

Small Satellite Conference

As earth observation satellites, Diwata microsatellites need to have a high degree of target pointing accuracy. Additionally, being in low orbit, they could experience strong external disturbances. Current methods for attitude control have proven to be effective. However, they are prone to changes in control and mass parameters. In this paper, we explore using Deep Reinforcement Learning (RL) for attitude control. This paper also leverages on Diwata’s simulator, MATA: Mission, Attitude, and Telemetry Analysis (MATA) software, in training the RL agent. We implemented two RL algorithms: Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) and Soft Actor-Critic (SAC). We then simulated different scenarios and …

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 …

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 …

Flight Model Development Of The Agu Remote Innovative Cubesat Alert System - Arica, Yasuyo Hata, Takanori Sakamoto, Motoko Serino, Maomao Duan, Tomoya Watanabe, Yuki Gouma, Hikaru Takahashi, Yuki Ueda, Yuto Nagamine, Teruaki Enoto, Yuuki Wada, Yoichi Yatsu

Small Satellite Conference

We present the flight model development of the 1U CubeSat, AGU Remote Innovative CubeSat Alert system (ARICA), which is scheduled to be launched in the Japanese fiscal year 2021 as the JAXA Innovative Satellite Technology Demonstration-2 project. The main goal of ARICA is to demonstrate the real-time alert system of the transient astronomical sources using commercial satellite network devices. The development of the flight components has been finished in April 2021. The thermal vacuum test was conducted at the end of April 2021. The vibration and shock tests were performed in May 2021. We are currently in the final stage …

Upmsat-2 Micro-Satellite: In-Orbit Technological Demonstration For Education And Science, Elena Roibás-Millán, Javier Pérez-Álvarez, Santiago Pindado, Javier Cubas, Ángel Sanz-Andrés, Sebastián Franchini, Isabel Perez-Grande, Gustavo Alonso, Andrés García-Pérez, Marcos Chimeno-Manguan, Ignacio Torralbo, Juan Zamorano, Juan Antonio De La Puente, Jorge Garrido, Alejandro Alonso, Alejandro Gómez-San Juan, Javier Piqueras, Lilian Peinado, Arturo González-Llana, José Miguel Álvarez Romero, Juan Bermejo

Small Satellite Conference

The UPMSat-2 micro-satellite was launched on September the 3rd 2020 at 01:51:10 UTC from Kourou spaceport in French Guyana. The VV16 Vega Flight has been the first low Earth orbit rideshare commercial flight with a total of 53 satellites (7 of them micro-satellites) to be released by the launch vehicle, arranged in the modular SSMS (Small Spacecraft Mission Service) dispenser. UPMSat-2 is an educational, scientific and in-orbit technological demonstration microsatellite project led by the IDR/UPM research institute from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Spain. This mission can be considered as a logical extension of the IDR/UPM Institute activities focused on …

Small Satellite Design At The Upm Master In Space Systems (Muse), Santiago Pindado, Javier Cubas, Elena Roibás-Millán, Javier Pérez-Álvarez, Ángel Sanz-Andrés, Sebastián Franchini, Isabel Perez-Grande, Gustavo Alonso, Andrés García-Pérez, Marcos Chimeno-Manguan, Ignacio Torralbo, Juan Zamorano, Alejandro Alonso

Small Satellite Conference

The Master in Space Systems (Máster Universitario en Sistemas Espaciales – MUSE) at UPM (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid) is an academic program organized at Instituto Universitario de Microgravedad “Ignacio Da Riva” (IDR/UPM) research institute. This is a 2-year Project Based Learning (PBL) master program which started in 2014. Since the first year of the MUSE, the students have participated actively in the development and construction of the UPMSat-2, an educational, scientific and in-orbit technological demonstration 50 kg-class microsatellite launched on September 2^nd, 2020. Students from MUSE have participated in all phases of the mission, from …