Digital Commons Network^™

A Marvelous Work: Reading Mormonism In West Africa, Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp

Arrington Annual Lecture

Two decades before the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began official missionary work in West Africa, pamphlets, books, and other church materials had been circulating among Christians in Nigeria and Ghana. Brought by seekers who had studied abroad or encountered church members from other countries, those texts formed the basis for a Mormon community outside the bounds of U.S. institutional authority or oversight.

What did this "native" Mormonism look like, and how did believers craft churches out of the bare materials of tracts and inspirational volumes? This talk explores the circulation and interpretation of this homegrown Mormon faith …

Climate Change And Utah Ski Resorts: Impacts, Perceptions, And Adaptation Strategies, Emily J. Wilkins, Hadia Akbar, Tara C. Saley, Rachel Hager, Colten M. Elkin, Patrick Belmont, Courtney G. Flint, Jordan W. Smith

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Climate change is a threat to ski resorts, the ski industry, and mountain communities that rely on ski tourism. Ski resorts may be able to mitigate some of the social and economic impacts caused by climate change with proactive adaptation strategies. Using historical weather data, future climate projections, and interviews with ski resort managers in Utah (United States), this research investigates the effects of climate change on ski resorts across the state. We examine temperature change at all resorts within the state from 1980–2018 and climate projections from 2021–2100 under different climate change scenarios (RCPs 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5). We …

Comparison Of Theoretical And Multi-Fidelity Optimum Aerostructural Solutions For Wing Design, Jeffrey D. Taylor, Douglas F. Hunsaker

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Student Publications and Presentations

As contemporary aerostructural research for aircraft design trends toward high-fidelity computational methods, aerostructural solutions based on theory are often neglected or forgotten. In fact, in many modern aerostructural wing optimization studies, the elliptic lift distribution is used as a benchmark in place of theoretical aerostructural solutions with more appropriate constraints. In this paper, we review several theoretical aerostructural solutions that could be used as benchmark cases for wing design studies, and we compare them to high-fidelity solutions with similar constraints. Solutions are presented for studies with 1) constraints related to the wing integrated bending moment, 2) constraints related to the …

Characterizing Inter-Sensor Calibration Radiometric Biases Between Snpp And Noaa-20 Omps Nadir Profiler (Np) Sensor Data Records By Using Hybrid Methodologies, Banghua Yan, Chunhui Pan, Ding Liang, Jingfeng Huang, Junye Chen, Trevor Beck, Steven Buckner, Xin Jin, Xiaozhen Xiong

The Characterization and Radiometric Calibration for Remote Sensing Annual Meeting (CALCON)

The Ozone Mapping & Profiler Suite (OMPS) Nadir Profiler (NP), onboard both the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) satellite and the Joint Polar Satellite System NOAA-20 satellite, is an ultraviolet-visible imaging spectrometer that measures Earth’s albedo by registering terrestrial events to Earth image and extraterrestrial events to Solar spectral images. The NP operates from wavelengths of 250 to 310 nm to profile ozone observations in Earth’s stratosphere. Through years of intensive post-launch calibrations and validations, the Sensor Data Record (SDR) data from both SNPP and NOAA-20 NP sensors demonstrate good performance, meeting the SDR specifications (e.g., Pan et al., 2017). …

Evaluation Of Air-Lusi Measurements To Advance Lunar Modeling And The Rolo Lunar Calibration Reference, Thomas C. Stone, Kevin Turpie, Steven Brown, Stephen Maxwell, John Woodward

The Characterization and Radiometric Calibration for Remote Sensing Annual Meeting (CALCON)

The airborne Lunar Spectral Irradiance (air-LUSI) project is dedicated to acquiring high-accuracy, spectrally resolved measurements of the Moon from the NASA ER-2 high-altitude aircraft, flying above more than 90% of Earth's atmosphere. The air-LUSI instrument is a non-imaging system designed specifically for measuring spectral irradiance of the Moon at wavelengths from ~350 nm to 1100 nm. The project aims to achieve absolute measurement uncertainty approaching 0.5% (k=1) with traceability to NIST radiometric standards and SI. These measurements can advance lunar calibration by constraining absolute scale of models that constitute the lunar radiometric reference, such as the USGS ROLO model.

A …

Data From: Yellow Air Day Advisory Study, Arthur J. Caplan

Browse all Datasets

Using a dataset consisting of daily vehicle trips, PM2.5 concentrations, along with a host of climactic control variables, we test the hypothesis that “yellow air day” advisories provided by the Utah Division of Air Quality resulted in subsequent reductions in vehicle trips taken during northern Utah’s winter-inversion seasons in the early 2000s. Winter inversions occur in northern Utah when climactic conditions are such that PM2.5 concentrations (derived mainly from vehicle emissions) become trapped in the lower atmosphere, leading to unhealthy air quality (concentrations of at least 35 µg/m3) over a span of what are called “red air days”. When concentrations …

Machine Learning As A Tool For Wildlife Management And Research: The Case Of Wild Pig-Related Content On Twitter, Lauren M. Jaebker, Hailey E. Mclean, Stephanie A. Shwiff, Keith M. Carlisle, Tara L. Teel, Alan D. Bright, Aaron M. Anderson

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Wild pigs (Sus scrofa) are a non-native, invasive species that cause considerable damage and transmit a variety of diseases to livestock, people, and wildlife. We explored Twitter, the most popular social media micro-blogging platform, to demonstrate how social media data can be leveraged to investigate social identity and sentiment toward wild pigs. In doing so, we employed a sophisticated machine learning approach to investigate: (1) the overall sentiment associated with the dataset, (2) online identities via user profile descriptions, and (3) the extent to which sentiment varied by online identity. Results indicated that the largest groups of online …

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

Small Satellite Conference

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

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

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

Small Satellite Conference

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

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

Small Satellite Conference

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

Toward A Cohesive Management Of Earth’S Orbital Environment: Applying Policy And Collaboration To A Design For The Present And Future, Charles Lee Mudd Jr.

Small Satellite Conference

The response to Starlink solar reflectivity by some industry leaders, scientists, and other interested actors demonstrates the ability for diverse space actors to collaborate through dialogue and innovation to solve nuanced technological problems. These efforts should be encouraged and modeled to implement a response to and prevention of future dynamics that affect Earth’s orbital environment. In a separate but related context, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) proposed and implemented new regulations regarding orbital debris. In 2021, the final regulations on orbital debris mitigation should be adopted, published, and implemented. This context suggests that the policy climate within the FCC should …

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; …

A Wave Physics Approach To Electronically Steerable Antennas, Jean-Baptiste Gros, Vladislav Popov, Mikhail Odit, Geoffroy Lerosey

Small Satellite Conference

Electronically steerable antennas, that are compact, thin, light and contain no mechanical parts, are being more and more used for satcom applications on the ground, notably owing to the fast development of mega constellations; yet their use is still very limited on board. Indeed, all designs up to date rely on the same old concept, phased arrays, namely, a large number of sources that are phased matched to point in various directions. These can be passive, in the sense that a common feed is used to radiate through many radiators, or active in which case each tiny emitter contains its …

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 …

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, …

Small Satellite Regulation In 2021, Lynne M. Montgomery, Christopher D. Bair

Small Satellite Conference

Small satellite innovation has advanced rapidly over the past decade, and regulators are working hard to keep up. In August 2020, a new streamlined licensing process became available at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for certain small satellite missions to bring satellite licensing procedures up to date with technological innovation. This new optional licensing process applies to small satellites meeting certain criteria, such as a constellation of ten or fewer satellites, a wet mass of 180 kg or less, a shorter in-orbit lifetime, and a low orbital debris risk. The streamlined licensing process provides for reduced fees and decreased regulatory …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Survival Analysis For Nanosatellites And Picosatellites, Dustin Hayhurst, Robert Bettinger, Christine Schubert Kabban

Small Satellite Conference

The nascent field of fractionated satellite architectures provides an opportunity to improve spacecraft modularity and afford greater flexibility, adaptability, and upgradeability to spacecraft constellations. Satellite modules within a coherent formation can be replaced without facing the challenges of manufacturing, assembly, or disassembly in the harsh space environment (e.g., satellite modules conducting electromagnetic formation flight (EMFF) are not physically connected such that one module may be replaced with potentially less risk of damaging or degrading the performance of the other modules). Conventionally, the depot for constellation replenishment is located on Earth, however, minor augmentations to spacecraft formations cannot be conducted economically …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Lessons Learned From The Development And Flight Of The First Miniature Tethered Electrodynamics Experiment (Mitee-1), George Li, Liam Spence, Mitchel Miller, Maya Pandya, Nick Stankey, Allison Hancock, Raymond Lu, Christopher Park, Anish Rajesh, Alex Beloiu, Brian Gilchrist

Small Satellite Conference

The Miniature Tether Electrodynamics Experiment (MiTEE) CubeSat team is a technological advancement project intended to evaluate technology for Electrodynamic Tether (EDT) propulsion on very small pico- and femto-satellite platforms. MiTEE is demonstrating this through a series of missions starting with MiTEE-1, a 3U CubeSat designed to characterize the electron current collection behavior of a biased, simulated picosat mounted at the end of a 1-meter deployable boom. In addition, a miniaturized Langmuir probe electronics board was flown to characterize the ambient plasma environment. MiTEE-1 was launched successfully with Virgin Orbit’s Launch Demo 2 flight on NASA’s 20th Educational Launch of Nanosatellites …

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 …

On-Board Deep Learning For Payload Data Processing: Hardware Performance Comparison, Mattia Varile, Christian Cardenio, Lorenzo Feruglio

Small Satellite Conference

The path towards a multi-planetary species passes through the implementation of disruptive technological innovation. Artificial Intelligence and autonomy on spacecraft will be a fundamental part of this future. Hence, leveraging on-the-edge AI accelerators, such as FPGAs, GPUs, VPUs, ASICs, will constitute an essential component of the spacecraft hardware of tomorrow.

This work presents a comparative work, specifically targeted to the use of on-board satellites.

The tested platforms are Intel Myriad X, Nvidia Jetson Nano, and CPU (x64 architecture)

Model-Based Engineering Education With Practical Activities Using Hepta-Sat, Takumi Sato, Taiga Zengo, Masahiko Yamazaki

Small Satellite Conference

In this study, we designed and implemented an education using CubeSat educational kit “HEPTA-Sat” to acquire Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) practically. We share the lessons learned there.

In the development of complicated systems such as CubeSat, it is difficult to manage requirements and tasks only in the mind, and omissions and inconsistencies may occur. And, in communication between members and document accumulated in the project, there is often a contradiction with the receiver, since there is implicit information which is not clarified in the background. Therefore, by describing a system in a modeling language and managing it by connecting various …

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 …

Innovations In The Field Of On-Board Scheduling Technologies, Temenuzhka Avramova, Alessandro Benetton, Christian Cardenio, Riccardo Maderna

Small Satellite Conference

Space missions are characterized by long distances, difficult or unavailable communication and high operating costs. Moreover, complexity has been constantly increasing in recent years. For this reason, improving the autonomy of space operators is an attractive goal to increase the mission reward with lower costs. This paper proposes an onboard scheduler, that integrates inside an onboard software framework for mission autonomy. Given a set of activities, it is responsible for determining the starting time of each activity according to their priority, order constraints, and resource consumption. The presented scheduler is based on linear integer programming and relies on the use …

Unisat-7: A Flexible Iod Platform With Orbital Maneuvering Capabilities, Riccardo Di Roberto, Nicola Sparvieri, Filippo Graziani, Nicolas Bellomo, Daniele Pavarin, Elena Toson, Fabiana Milza

Small Satellite Conference

New Space technology for Small Satellites has greatly advanced in the past five years. These progresses shall match with a swift integration and testing phase, to be readily marketable, therefore IOD missions are essential to expedite project outcomes.

GAUSS has started working on Small Satellites since 1990s, with its first satellite, UNISAT, launched in 2000. In 2013, UNISAT-5 was the first platform to accomplish in-orbit-release of third-party satellites, with UNISAT-6 following in less than one year.

UNISAT-7 is the latest addition to the UNISAT series: a 32kg microsatellite designed and manufactured by GAUSS Srl (a spin-off company of Scuola di …