Digital Commons Network^™

In-Orbit Results Of Autonomous Formation Flight And Gnss-Based Relative Navigation In The Nanoff Mission, Grant Regen, Fynn Boyer, Sascha Kapitola, Debdeep Roychowdhury, Alan Legenza, Mara Krachten, Ben Palmer, Enrico Stoll

Small Satellite Conference

The Nanosatellites in Formation Flight (NanoFF) mission demonstrates autonomous proximity operations using two 2U CubeSats equipped with resistojet propulsion as well as advanced onboard navigation and communication systems. Launched in December 2023 and deployed into a partial helix orbit in January 2024, NanoFF has conducted precision formation flight and cooperative inter-satellite operations relevant to future small-satellite constellations. This paper presents recent in-orbit results obtained during an extended operational phase of the mission. Both spacecraft are equipped with GNSS receivers enabling precise position and orbit determination. A key architectural element is the use of an inter-satellite link (ISL) in the ultra …

Arcstone: Calibration Of Lunar Spectral Reflectance From Space - One Year On-Orbit Performance, Michael Cooney, Cindy Young, Mark Banchy, Noah Ryan

Small Satellite Conference

Arcstone is a 6U CubeSat launched June 2025 to demonstrate in-space validation of an approach for measuring the lunar disk reflectance to a high degree of accuracy, which will be used to create a new lunar model for calibration of reflected solar instruments. The mission was funded via NASA's InVEST program and had design input, analysis, management and operation from NASA Langley Research Center with multiple collaborators doing additional design work, calibration, and analysis. The Arcstone instrument is a hyperspectral instrument spanning the spectral range from 350 nm to 2300 nm. Arcstone views the Moon and the Sun controlling detector …

I Think I'M Falling For You: Xvi Mission's Final Days In Orbit, Lee Jasper, Erika A. Chavez, Andrew A. Knuth, Adam T. Reinelt, Cameron Shideler, Jayce Thedford, Declan Byrne, Michael Dompke

Small Satellite Conference

The Air Force Research Lab’s (AFRL) Small Satellite Portfolio (SSP) created the XVI CubeSat which was launched on SpaceX’s Transporter 8 in June of 2023. 

XVI remained operational from June 2023 until its deorbit on January 7, 2026. Throughout its lifetime, the team maintained the vehicle and used XVI for experimentation and training purposes. However, due to the sun's low activity around this time frame, and intentionally lowering the drag/cross sectional area of XVI on orbit, the spacecraft was able to stay in orbit for months beyond its initial predicted re-entry. 

Between January 4th and January 7th, XVI was tracked …

Student-Led Operational Framework And Initial On-Orbit Lessons Learned In Multifunctional Membrane Mission Helios-R, Daichi Ishido, Masanori Matsushita, Yuki Takao, Ahmed Kiyoshi Sugihara, Osamu Mori, Tetsuya Kusumoto, Yukiho Ohtsuki, Yuto Nakagawa, Haruhito Ohki, Kaho Nakagawa, Shusaku Tsuruya, Masaaki Shigematsu, Fumiya Aono, Kaine Amakawa, Akihiro Kushima, Ayumu Kawasaki, Jiro Takada, Hinata Yamamoto, Reiji Kobayashi, Ryuki Shimizu, Hiroaki Yoneda, Hirona Kawahara, Junya Taguchi, Satsuki Yokohori, Tomoyo Shibata, Kazuki Hamatsuki, Mao Takata, Toshiyuki Hori, Hiroaki Ito, Akihito Watanabe, Sota Kume, Atsuki Ochi, Takuma Komaba, Hiraku Sakamoto, Atsushi Shirane, Kenichi Okada, Ayako Torisaka, Nobukatsu Okuizumi, Yasutaka Satou, Yasuyuki Miyazaki, Atsuhiko Senba

Small Satellite Conference

To enable a broad range of space activities, small satellites require innovative solutions for lightweight, high-power generation. HELIOS-R (Harvesting Energy with Lightweight Integrated Origami Structure), co-developed by JAXA, Institute of Science Tokyo, and Sakase Adtech Co., Ltd., is a pioneering multifunctional membrane component. Launched in December 2025 as part of the RAISE-4 mission, it integrates thin-film solar arrays, a 5G array antenna, and an interferometer antenna on a 1-meter equilateral triangular membrane. This paper details a reliable operational framework developed by a diverse, student-led team from JAXA/ISAS to address stringent operational constraints and technical challenges arising from severe launch delays. …

Long-Term Software-Defined Formation Flying And Its Application To Space Mimo Communications, Takaya Inamori, Keita Tanaka, Kiyoshi Kinefuchi, Shigeru Sunada, Yousuke Kawabata, Ayumu Nono, Takumi Noro, Yukihisa Otani, Norihide Miyamura, Eiji Okamoto, Yuma Abe, Yoshimi Fujii, Hiroyuki Tsuji, Takuya Okura, Rei Kawashima, Takuto Ogawa, Tomoyuki Miyashita

Small Satellite Conference

Formation flying of multiple small satellites is expected to enable novel space missions that cannot be achieved by a single satellite. Small sized satellites are strongly affected by environmental disturbances and have strict constraints on mass, volume, and power. This study focuses on characteristics that become prominent as satellites are miniaturized, such as the increased influence of space environment and enhanced interactions among onboard components. By utilizing these effects, the research aims to realize propellant-less, software-defined formation flying. The proposed technologies are applied to space MIMO (multiple input multiple output) communications, in which communication capacity is improved by controlling the …

Advancing Wavelet-Adaptive Interference Cancellation To Enable Cubesat Constellations For High-Fidelity Ac Magnetometry, Surya S. Kalluri, Alex P. Hoffmann, Mark B. Moldwin, James W. Cutler, Yethinder Ragav Lakshmi Kumar, Lauro V. Ojeda

Small Satellite Conference

Dense CubeSat constellations equipped with science-grade AC magnetometers offer a transformative path toward high spatial and temporal resolution of several magnetospheric phenomena that large spacecraft missions cannot resolve. Realizing this vision demands boomless magnetometry– due to deployment risks and resource constraints on nano/micro satellite platforms in large scale –capable of operating in the presence of intense spacecraft-generated electromagnetic interference without the spatial separation that conventional booms provide. This paper advances the characterization of the Wavelet-Adaptive Interference Cancellation for Underdetermined Platforms (WAIC-UP) algorithm across different frequency regimes and two distinct classes of test data. In the 50 Hz to 30 kHz …

Toward Trainable Ai Agents For Satellite Operations, Haley Calderon, Vaibhav Bhosale, Ketan Bhardwaj, Ada Gavrilovska

Small Satellite Conference

Low Earth orbit is increasingly crowded, and a growing share of it is flown by universities and small operators. These teams must detect and respond to on-orbit anomalies with far less staff, expertise, and tooling than large operators, and a single missed anomaly can end a mission. We present COMET, a ground-based operator agent that helps a small team both detect anomalies and diagnose them. COMET pairs a learned detector with a retrieval-augmented diagnosis stage. An LSTM autoencoder flags anomalous telemetry windows, and a language model explains each one against the mission’s own documentation, procedures, and prior operational records. Because …

Passive Thermal Imaging And Failure Detection Of Large-Area Space Structures Using Spin Crossover Composite Skins, Edward Pomianek, Codrin Tugui, Denise Maria De Andrade, Mihai Duduta

Small Satellite Conference

Deployable solar arrays are among the most failure-prone structures on spacecraft, and on small satellites their large area, low mass, and mechanical complexity make faults both more likely and harder to observe. Electrostatic discharge, string arcing, and localized hot spots can degrade or disable an array, yet the mass and harness penalties of distributed point sensors are difficult to accommodate within CubeSat resource budgets. This paper presents a passive, camera-readable sensing skin based on spin crossover (SCO) composite films that converts thermal events on a large-area structure into persistent optical information. The active material, [Fe(NH₂trz)₃]Br_{2 …}

An Ai-Enabled Ground Processing Pipeline For Image Restoration And Super-Resolution In 1u Cubesat Missions, Juan Bernardo Calabrese, Manuel Alejandro González Mendoza, Eduardo De La Vega Segura

Small Satellite Conference

The inaugural 1U CubeSat mission of Universidad Panamericana represents a shift in academic remote sensing, prioritizing ground-segment intelligence to overcome the physical and computational constraints of a 10-centimeter cubic form factor. Given strict power limitations, the satellite utilizes a low-cost, space-qualified XCAM C3D imaging system providing moderate-quality 1.3MP imagery with a ground sample distance (GSD) of approximately 360 meters at an altitude of 550 kilometers. To transform these raw frames into high-value Earth Observation products, this paper details an automated ground station framework hosting a modular image processing pipeline. The pipeline combines traditional image processing—including histogram equalization and edge enhancement—with …

Itasat2 Conceptual Architectural Design Of A Multi-Band Communication Framework For Distributed Cubesat Formation Operations, Renan Guilherme Soares Menezes, Edson Wander Do Rego Pereira, Bruno Leonardo Schuster, Pedro Casarin, Pedro Henrique Antero Lira, Luiz Fernando Da Cunha Silva, Matheus Esteves, Lidia Shibuya Sato, Ana Di Iorio, Luis Eduardo Vergueiro Loures Da Costa

Small Satellite Conference

The growing operational complexity of distributed CubeSat missions in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) demands communication architectures that provide robustness, responsiveness, and mission-level adaptability. The ITASAT2 mission, composed of three coordinated CubeSats operating in controlled relative motion, serves as a representative case to investigate how a multi-layer communication architecture can support formation flying, responsive maneuver planning, space situational awareness (SSA), distributed payload operations, and increasing levels of onboard autonomy within strict SWaP constraints. This paper proposes and analyzes a multi-band communication architecture designed to improve both operational resilience and communication responsiveness. The architecture combines a primary telemetry, tracking, and command (TT&C) …

Autonomous Reinforcement Learning Astrobee Control With Low Swap Neuromorphic Hardware, Kenneth Stewart, Roxana Leontie, Samantha Chapin, Joe Hays, Sumit Bam Shrestha, Carl Glen Henshaw

Small Satellite Conference

We present an end-to-end pipeline for deploying neural networks on low SWaP neuromorphic hardware to control a CubeSat like robot. As a test case, we use a reinforcement learning (RL)-trained Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) on neuromorphic hardware by converting them into spiking Sigma-Delta Neural Networks (SDNNs) for controlling the NASA Astrobee free-flying robot, similar to a previously space-validated controller demonstrated on robotic hardware. We demonstrate that an ANN trained entirely in simulation can be transformed into an SDNN compatible with Intel’s Loihi 2 neuromorphic architecture, enabling low-latency and energy-efficient inference. The SDNN is deployed on Loihi 2, then evaluated in …

Pulse-Q: Space-To-Ground Quantum Key Distribution At The Cubesat Form Factor, Logan Hanssler, Stewart Kristiansen, Ellisian King, Neha Chandran, Unnathi Venkatesh, Selina Gao, Nelson Chan, Mika Sadikario, Joseph Sorel, Lexi Liu, Eleanor Gentry, Rohan Gupta, Juan Ignacio Prieto Asbun, Lauren Ayala, Vincent Redwine, Tian Zhong

Small Satellite Conference

Motivation 

• Quantum key distribution (QKD) offers provably secure communication regardless of the technology available to potential eavesdroppers.
• Space-to-ground QKD facilitates long-distance key distribution without costly terrestrial infrastructure.
• The Polarization-modUlated Laser Satellite Experiment – Quantum (PULSE-Q) is a 12U CubeSat mission to leverage recent innovations in compact quantum sources and optical communication to achieve space-to-ground QKD.

Rapid Integration Of A Secondary Communications Subsystem On Aggiesat6, Alex B. Halbesleben, John F. Connolly

Small Satellite Conference

AggieSat Laboratory (AGSL) is a student-run space program that trains students in systems engineering through hands-on experience in the design, building, testing, and operation of space and space-related systems

AGSL is currently comprised of 107 students, most of whom are undergraduates. Its members work on eight active projects (including a shadow program for underclassmen).

AGSL has demonstrated flight heritage with the deployments of AggieSat2, AggieSat4, and AggieSat6.

The Base Got Hit: Interpersonal Communication Strategies In High-Stress Space Projects, Allison E. Barnes, Avery G. Barriga, John F. Connolly

Small Satellite Conference

The AggieSat Laboratory (AGSL) is a student-driven laboratory with 17 years of space systems experience and flight heritage. As AGSL prepares to launch several space systems over the next three years, reflecting on lessons learned from past projects is critical to improving future reliability and execution. This survey analyzes communication dynamics in past CubeSat and ISS payload projects, specifically within the high-stress phases of Assembly, Integration, and Test (AI&T) and Mission Operations, where a combination of young engineers and high-stakes decision-making can often lead to compounding, avoidable technical anomalies.

This survey identifies specific interpersonal strategies to mitigate human error, including …

Vision-Based Pose Estimation Of A Low-Inertia Robotic Capture Arm, Dane Groves, Willem Jordaan

Small Satellite Conference

The development of CubeSat-integrated robotic arms has expanded the possibilities for In-Orbit Assembly, Repair, and Servicing (OARS). A low-inertia robotic capture arm has been designed previously using remote actuation¹. In the context of CubeSats, this allows heavy actuators to be placed in the base of the CubeSat and lightweight, slender links can be connected to form an arm. This design, depicted in Figure 1, allows for a robotic arm with a low moment of inertia.

The limited 6.5 mm link profile prevents the integration of high-resolution joint encoders, motivating the use of an alternative state estimation technique. This …

Processor And Sensor Interfacing On Fpga For Stp-H12-Vantage Space Mission, Christopher Brubaker, Alan D. George

Small Satellite Conference

Previous SHREC Missions

• STP-H5-CSP – Demonstration of CSP and hybrid COTS + rad-hard architecture
• STP-H6-SSIVP – Parallel and distributed computing with multiple CSPs
• STP-H7-CASPR – Onboard processing with next-gen sensors and apps

STP-H12-VANTAGE

• Visual And Neuromorphic Tracking And Geosensing Experiment
• Correlation of neuromorphic and visual sensor data
• Advancing usage of COTS SoMs supplemented with rad-hard monitoring and watchdog circuitry

Squidsat: A Modular, Open-Source 3u Cubesat Bus For Low-Cost Cubesat Missions, Aaron Bournias, Joseph Dukowitz, Mark Jaber, Tyler Field, Micah Nguyen, Koowum Joshi, Noah Campos, Daphne Riordan, Ryan La Ra, Jonathan Luse, Joshua Sink, Tyler Nielsen, Ricardo Ontivaros, Michael Goryll, Joe Dubois

Small Satellite Conference

CubeSat launches continue to increase yearly, yet over 51% of missions from 2002–2016 failed. Primary faults were often due to power, mechanical, or design issues. Costs still remain high in a market driven by expensive flight-heritage hardware with proprietary designs. In order to counteract such costly practice, Sun Devil Satellite Lab (SDSL) at ASU has developed an open-source, modular 3U CubeSat bus built for low cost reliability. Unlike other bus architectures, SquidSat distributes control across independent microcontrollers linked via a CAN bus. CAN is commanded by the OBC but is capable of independent operation for fault isolation and easier testing. …

Onboard Ai At The Orbital Edge: A Mission Debrief From Stp-H7-Caspr, Evan W. Gretok, Linus Silbernagel, Diego Wildenstein, Michael J. Cannizzaro, Seth Roffe, Alan D. George

Small Satellite Conference

Goals: Enable autonomous Earth observation and onboard sensor data processing with novel compute

Motivations: Growing numbers of spacecraft demand autonomy in operation and data collection

Challenges: Harsh radiation and thermal environment of space over four-year mission lifetime

A Comparative Analysis Of Radio Frequency And Optical Inter-Satellite Link Communications For Leo Mega-Constellations, Alexa Houck, Suryansh Aryan, Kevin Schroeder, Samantha Kenyon

Small Satellite Conference

SpaceNet design  

Software-based testbed for simulating large satellite networks, specifically LEO-based constellations to analyze network behavior, connectivity, routing, and overall communication.  

• Phase one focuses on connectivity and routing: Given the topology and link availability over time, how does my network behave? 
• Phase two focuses on network emulation: Given the topology and link availability over time, how does my network behave? 

Arcsecond-Level Pointing Accuracy In A Cubesat: Development And Verification Of The High-Precision Pointing System For The Cubespec Mission, Leonardo Peri

Small Satellite Conference

Mission and objectives 

CubeSpec is a 12U CubeSat mission designed to demonstrate high-resolution stellar spectroscopy from a small, low-cost space platform. 

Its scientific objectives require the payload line-of-sight to remain stable within a few arcseconds. This is beyond the capability of conventional CubeSat Attitude Determination & Control Systems (ADCS). 

To meet this challenge, CubeSpec uses a dual-stage pointing architecture: the spacecraft ADCS provides coarse body pointing, while a High-Precision Pointing Platform applies fast, precise corrections directly to the payload line-of-sight.

Snack Protocol For Reliable High-Throughput Data Transfer On Mtu-Constrained Low-Cost Uhf Radios, Samantha Mallari, Dennis Sarsozo, Miguel Nunes

Small Satellite Conference

• Student CubeSat missions using sub-$100 UHF radios are constrained by small packet sizes, making standard protocols (e.g., TCP, CFDP) too overhead-intensive for payload downlinks.  
• We developed a Selective Negative Acknowledgement (SNACK)-based protocol for the Artemis CubeSat Kit bus to support reliable 160 × 120 LWIR thermal image transmission for the CubeSats for Climate Change Monitoring (C3M) mission  
• A 45-byte SNACK bitmap acknowledges up to 360 packet fragments, minimizing retransmission overhead.  
• Field tests from 5 m to 1.6 km achieved 72.2 kbps peak throughput and ≥98.7% final data integrity.

Austronauts 3u Cubesat Space Weather Payloads Proposal, Tiana Pendray

Small Satellite Conference

CubeSats are becoming increasingly prominent due to their accessibility, affordability and versatility. An emerging field of satellite application is the monitoring of ionospheric space weather, made possible by sensitive instruments that collect data on plasma potential, temperature and ion density. These parameters vary due to changing solar activity in the form of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and solar flares, which can have severe impacts on satellite navigation systems, radio communication networks and orbital estimations. The AUStronauts team at the University of New South Wales is developing a 3U CubeSat with two space weather payloads – an Electrodynamic Tether (EDT) and …

Autonomous Microelectronics See Payload For Validating Terrestrial Predictions In Space, Michael A. Blacconiere, Isaac Hudson, John W. Burgoon, Terrance Sacks, Spencer Westfall, Sajal Islam, Davidson Juhke, George Randel, Jared Harvey, Merek Chertkow, Daniel Loveless

Small Satellite Conference

The radiation environment in space is complex and time-varying, causing major risks for microelectronic applications. Terrestrial radiation sources are used to characterize devices before missions to predict in-orbit error rates. However, these predictions are rarely validated in deployment. The payload, designed by IU CREATE and The Radiation Team, the IUB-SAT-1, integrates IU’s RadFX-IC and commercial SRAMs with well-characterized terrestrial radiation responses into a modular payload to collect on-orbit radiation-response data. Results will refine radiation error-rate models and improves confidence in deploying advanced microelectronics to radiation-rich space environments.

Bit-Flip Sensitivity And Selective Fp32 Protection For Onboard Neural Networks In Flight Software: In-Place Secded Healing Of An Fp32 Weight Buffer Inside Nasa Cfs, Ryan Goodman, Carson Cramer, Braden Eichmeier, Emily Gerber, Christopher Roscoe

Small Satellite Conference

Smallsat missions increasingly deploy neural networks on COTS processors. In orbit, a charged particle striking such a device can flip a single bit of memory, a single event upset (SEU). An upset in a network weight raises no fault condition: the network continues to run, returns incorrect values, and the control loop downstream acts on them. 

The standard cFS response to memory corruption is process restart, which interrupts service and discards runtime state.

Development And Validation Of An Operator-Friendly Flight Dynamics System For High-Precision Leo Nanosatellite Operations, K. W. Cheong, M. C. Kim, P. R. Kim, M. G. Kim, J. Y. Yu, G. H. Ju

Small Satellite Conference

A ground-based Flight Dynamics System (FDS) provides essential orbit information for satellite monitoring and mission planning. This study develops a Python-based integrated FDS that processes GPS observations, TLEs, and ephemerides through interconnected orbit determination, orbit propagation, and event prediction modules. The developed system combines Batch Least Squares orbit determination, HPOP/SGP4 propagation, covariance analysis, and nodal-crossing prediction within a consistent time and coordinate framework. 

The objective is to establish and validate an integrated workflow that generates reliable orbit states, future ephemerides, uncertainty information, and operational event products for CubeSat ground operations 

Experimental Assessment Of A 15-N Nitrous Oxide And Ethane Thruster For Premixed And Non-Premixed Operations, Eunwoo Jung, Juwon Kim, Eunkwang Lee, Keunseok Lee, Yonggu Kim, Minwoo Lee

Small Satellite Conference

• Nitrous Oxide (N₂O) has attracted significant attention as an oxidizer for next-generation small scale propulsion systems due to its non-toxic and high vapor pressure, which enables self-pressurization.  
• By combining N₂O with hydrocarbon fuels, propulsion systems can be operated either as bipropellant systems or as premixed propulsion systems.  
• N₂O-based premixed propellants, commonly known as NOFB (Nitrous Oxide Fuel Blend), require only a single propellant tank, similar to monopropellant systems, resulting in a simplified system architecture; however, their high susceptibility to flashback necessitates the incorporation of dedicated flashback prevention devices.  
• The objective of this study is …

Functional Analysis Of Raspberry Pi Rp-Series Microcontrollers Using High-Dose Gamma Radiation For Low-Cost Cubesats, Tyler Nielsen, Aaron Bournias, Joe Dubois

Small Satellite Conference

Radiation testing of non-rad hard microcontrollers is crucial for low-cost CubeSats, allowing teams to avoid the prohibitive cost of radiation-hardened systems while still selecting microcontrollers that will survive in the irradiated environment of space.

In-Transit Debris Remediation: Dual-Use Logistics For Sustainable Cislunar Smallsat Constellations, Wanjiku Chebet Kanjumba

Small Satellite Conference

A Debris Crisis Meets A Logistics Boom: Low- and high-Earth orbit keep accumulating debris faster than the atmosphere can clear it, even as NASA's Artemis and CLPS programs establish routine trans-lunar traffic. The 2009 Iridium-Cosmos collision and later anti-satellite tests proved that single fragmentation events can irreversibly degrade critical orbital shells, raising the specter of Kessler Syndrome. 

• 46,600+ objects tracked on orbit today, with ~130 million sub-cm fragments (ESA, 2025)
• $500K-$2M cost per kilogram for dedicated ADR, fiscally intractable at system scale
• 5-10 / yr large objects must be removed to stabilize LEO (Liou & Johnson)

The Unit-Economics Problem: Purpose-built …

Lessons Learned From The Hyvrid 3u Cubesat Development, Kim Jee Hoon

Small Satellite Conference

Space Object Surveillance System 

• Hanwha Systems’ Next Generation Satellite Laser Ranging (NGSLR) uses the turnaround time of laser emitted from the ground to measure precise distance of satellites or space objects.  
• It is also capable of precise orbit prediction and active response by utilizing high-energy laser. 

Verification Satellite

• CubeSat HYVRID is made to operate as a target satellite of the NGSLR system, verifying the laser ranging, precise orbit prediction, and active response technology.
  • GPS raw data
  • laser detection data
  • images captured before-and-after active response

Microcontroller Debugging Efficiency For Low Cost Cubesat Missions, Koowum Joshi, Tyler Nielson, Tyler Field, Aaron Bounias, Michael Goryll

Small Satellite Conference

This study evaluates the debugging efficiency of different microcontrollers for CubeSat applications by using a “debugging box” system that links two devices to detect faulty code. It compares latency, reliability, and cost to identify the most effective low-cost option. The goal is to improve accessibility to space technologies.