Digital Commons Network^™

Design Of An Imaging Payload For Earth Observation From A Nanosatellite, Elliot Saive, Liam Droog, Katelyn Ball, Jari Swanson, Elizabeth Chao, Michael G. Lipsett, Amina E. Hussein, Carlos F. Lange, Bruce F. Cockburn, Duncan G. Elliott

Small Satellite Conference

A compact imaging payload consisting of visible-near infrared and short-wave infrared capability is being developed to demonstrate low-cost wildfire monitoring among other Earth observations. Iris is a 1U multispectral push-broom imager that is capable of generating spectral data pertinent for wildfire science and wildfire risk analysis from a CubeSat platform. This payload is slated to fly on-board Ex-Alta 2, the University of Alberta’s second CubeSat and Alberta’s contribution to the Canadian CubeSat Project, to be deployed from the International Space Station in 2022. Iris features four closely integrated designs: optical, structural, electronics, and firmware. The mechanical and electronic interfaces of …

Ultra-Lightweight Deployable Antenna Membrane Technology For Future Non-Terrestrial 6g Network And Earth Observation, Atsushi Shirane, Takashi Tomura, Hiraku Sakamoto, Kenichi Okada

Small Satellite Conference

A deployable antenna membrane is one of the promising solutions to achieve a higher speed of satellite communication and earth observation in small satellites. Unlike conventional deployable antennas, the proposed approach permits low flatness of the antenna membrane and compensates it electrically. By eliminating the conventional large deployment and support structure, the proposed non-planar membrane can be lighter and installed in small satellites. We introduce two types of membrane antennas: reflectarray antennas and active phased-array transceivers.

The Near-Earth Space Radiation Environment During Solar Cycle 25: Consequences For The Alabama Burst Energetics Explorer, Michael Halvorson, Tyler Tolbert, Kody Ehlers, Ross Anderson, Chris Howell, Keller Stallings

Small Satellite Conference

The Alabama Burst Energetics eXplorer (ABEX) is a 12U mission to enhance the detection of low energy Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) components and provide improved, rapid localization of short GRBs for multiwavelength follow up via GRB measurements outside the Van Allen Belts (VAB). The ABEX launch date is Q4 2024 during the peak of solar cycle 25; the ABEX science orbit is 300 km perigee by 60,000 km apogee with an inclination of 27°. This orbit defines distinct radiation environments in Low Earth Orbit, crossing the VABs, performing science operations outside the VABs, and Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) conditions. Numerical …

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

Small Satellite Conference

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

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

Small Satellite Conference

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

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

Small Satellite Conference

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

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

Small Satellite Conference

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

Design And Development Of Prelude, Satellite For Seismic Precedence Detection And Verification Using Vlf Radio Waves For Navigation Obtained In Orbit, Tomoyuki Iida, Ryo Futamata, Masahiko Yamazaki, Masashi Kamogawa

Small Satellite Conference

In this study, we analyzed the ionospheric anomaly in the D region, which precedes the occurrence of earthquakes, by focusing on the VLF radio wave for navigation, which is used for military communication, among the observation data of the earth observation satellite DEMETER (Detection of Electro-Magnetic Emissions Transmitted from Earthquake Regions). We analyzed the ionospheric anomaly in the D region that occurs prior to an earthquake. Next, based on the results, we propose the design of a 6U nano-satellite dedicated to the detection of earthquake precursory phenomena using navigational VLF radio waves: Prelude (Precursory electric field observation CubeSat demonstrator). The …

Deployable Optical Receiver Array Cubesat, Adriana Talamante, Judd D. Bowman, Daniel C. Jacobs, Zachary Hoffman, Michael Horne, Christopher Mccormick, Jose E. Velazco, Julia Arnold, Sean E. Cornish, Uriel S. Escobar, Andy R. Klaib

Small Satellite Conference

Small satellites and cubesats often have low data transmission rates due to the use of low-gain radio links in UHF and S bands. These links typically provide up to only 1 Mbps for communication between the ground and LEO, limiting the applications and mission operations of small satellites. Optical communication technology can enable much higher data rates and is rapidly gaining hold for larger satellites, including for crosslinks within SpaceX’s Starlink constellation and upcoming NASA deep space missions. However, it has been difficult to implement on small satellites and cubesats due to the need for precision pointing on the order …

Automatic Change Of Sdr Parameters' Values During Runtime In Gnuradio For Satellite Communication Subsystem, Yasir M. O. Abbas, Kenichi Asami

Small Satellite Conference

Shifting from traditional hardware radios to the Software-Defined Radio (SDR) is becoming reality, and SDRs are going rapidly to dominate the satellite communication subsystems. For testing designs, researchers use many tools such as the popular GNURADIO software which programs and controls SDR devices by providing signal processing blocks implementing the desired signals as well as hardware interface blocks. It is user-friendly and simple to beginners. Moreover, it has powerful and advanced capabilities for more complex missions. In some cases, we need to modify communication parameters such as frequency, data rate or modulation scheme without relaunching the program. Many times, the …

Lessons Learned From A Remote Summer Internship Program: Student-Built 1u Cots Cubesats, M. Chantale Damas

Small Satellite Conference

An ongoing challenge in undergraduate engineering and science education is providing students with hands-on experience in the development of space technology, and to engage them in discovering new knowledge. The CUNY/Queensborough Community College, a Hispanic and minority-serving institution, has been very successful at engaging undergraduate students to design, assemble and test 1U Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS) CubeSat. With funding from NASA MUREP, this past summer, students participated in a remote 8-weeks QCC-NASA summer internship, in which they were challenged to build a 1U COTS CubeSat Students CubeSats projects involved both technology demonstrations and scientific payloads. This poster describes the program and also …

Space-Based Ionosonde Receiver And Visible Limb-Viewing Airglow Sensor (Sirvlas): A Cubesat Instrument Suite For Enhanced Ionospheric Charge Density Measurements, Andrew Healey, Benjamin Cohen, Santiago Lisa, Ryan He

Small Satellite Conference

Spatially and temporally varying plasma in the ionosphere refracts passing electromagnetic waves, affecting services including over-the-horizon radar, global positioning systems, and long-distance amateur radio communication. The reliability of these services requires accurate measurements of the charge density of ionospheric plasma. Current methods for estimating ionospheric charge density include ground-based radar soundings in the high frequency (HF) band and airglow limb sensing, typically in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) spectrum. SIRVLAS is a low-cost, compact instrument suite for these measurements designed by blair3sat, a high school satellite team based in Montgomery County, Maryland. It takes electron density measurements below the F peak …

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

Small Satellite Conference

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

Hack Modular On-Board Computer For Edge Computing In Micro-Satellites, Emilio Fazzoletto, Alessandro Di Paola, Eugenio Scarpa

Small Satellite Conference

Argotec HACK OBC offers unprecedent flexibility thanks to its design developed from scratch to be modular and easily reconfigurable.

Different standard modules, based on both state-of-the-art SoCs and FPGAs, can be assembled without the need of external harness to face a wide variety of applications, from spacecraft management to hardware acceleration. The design leverages a mix of rad-hard, defense-grade and automotive components carefully selected to enable the execution of demanding edge-computing tasks while ensuring a reliability level significantly higher than standard CubeSat avionics. Each HACK module is designed to be powered by a single +5V DC rail and has …

A New Gigabit Software Modem And Its Cloud Deployment: Concept And Capabilities, Tomislav Nakić-Alfirević

Small Satellite Conference

Software Modem Architecture

Receivers typically have 3 components: a digitizer to digitize the signal, a digital signal processor to demodulate and decode it and a front-end processor to handle frame and packet level processing.

The digitizer receives analogue input, so it has to be a hardware device. Blink implements everything else as high-performance software, making it extremely quick to extend and customise for new missions, as well as cost-competitive. In addition, all 3 components are completely independent an can work together with third party digitizers or modems.

This is only possible because Blink is the fastest software receiver in the …

Champ - Chippewa Homestead Antenna & Mission Program, Andrew Johnson, Danielle Cleveland, Micah Blackwell

Small Satellite Conference

On January 28, 2021 the Michigan Aerospace Manufacturing Association (MAMA) announced the site selection for the Michigan Launch Initiative (MLI) Satellite Command and Control Communications (C3) center. The Chippewa Homestead Antenna & Mission Program (CHAMP) was selected to host, implement, and conduct the C3 functions for MLI's vertical and horizontal launch capabilities. This poster presents in detail the CHAMP phased implementation strategy to support the complex mission operations needs of the next generation Hybrid Architectures and Mesh Networks.

New Generation Of Multi-Bands S-X-Ka Ground Station For Smallsats, Michele Switalski, Arnaud Robert

Small Satellite Conference

The LEGION 400 is the new generation of 4m-class antenna system released by Safran Data Systems. Originally designed for Mega-Constellations, the LEGION 400 benefits from a unique tri-band S/X/Ka concentric feed, patented by Safran, combined with a lean and an ultra accurate pedestal.

Safran Data Systems offers its customers total flexibility in building up a scalable ground segment for the long term, with a true one-stop-shop for the complete system, including antenna, radome, RF, baseband, station Monitoring & Control as well as scheduler.

The LEGION 400 is applicable whether you need to support smallsats, launch vehicles or …

Optimizing Communications For Cubesats To Commercial Constellations, Christian Rodriguez

Small Satellite Conference

In 2008, Florida International University researchers proposed the world's first Cubesat to Commercial Satellite Network Inter-Satellite Link and created a payload, called PicoPanther, to move data from Cubesats to the Iridium Network. In the years following, dozens of satellites have used the Cubesat to Iridium/Globalstar payload concept and the amount of constellations in Orbit that can be used for Cubesat Inter-satellite links have grown. Cubesats using commercial constellations for communications have the benefit of near instant communication with their Cubesats for health monitoring and data transfer without relying on a global network of gateways. This poster describes software that maximizes …

From Early Curiosity To Space Wide Web: Emergence Of The Small Satellite Innovation Ecosystem, Yue Song, Devi Gnyawali, Lihong Qian

Small Satellite Conference

Research Questions:

• How did the small satellite ecosystem emerge and evolve?
• Although the first modern small satellite UoSat-1 was successfully launched in 1981, and the CubeSat dominant design was introduced in 1999, the sales takeoff of small satellites did not occur until the early 2010s. What explains this long time period?

Inflight Resources Recycling And Pollution Mitigation Impacts Through The Wolfsat-1 Cubesat Mission, Paul Kiesling, Rachel Nussbaum, Alex Castronovo, Finley Strauss, Mili Mohanty, Kevin Simmons

Small Satellite Conference

Mission: A CubeSat to Monitor Enzyme Activity of Ideonella Sakaiensis in the Microgravity Environment

Inspiring The Next Generation: Challenges And Strategies For Onboarding And Retention In An Undergraduate Cubesat Design Team, Cassandra Chanen, Abhishek Nair, Adyn Miles, Annalisa Cognigni, Benjamin Nero, Bruno Almeida, Brytni Richards, Cameron Rodriguez, Catherine Guo, David Maranto, Dylan Vogel, Emma Belhadfa, Eric Van Velzen, Gabriel Sher, Ian Bennett, Ibrahim Pervez, Jason Rock, Ketan Vasudeva, Khalil Damouni, Mingde Yin, Prachi K. Sukhnani, Rima Uraiqat, Rosalind Liang, Samuel Looper, Selena Liu, Shiqi Xu, Suraj Parasuram, Timothy Yeung, William Ferrie, Xi Lan, Yong Da Li

Small Satellite Conference

The University of Toronto Aerospace Team (UTAT) Space Systems Division is a fully student levy-funded, student-led undergraduate design team that develops CubeSats with research-oriented payloads. UTAT’s mission is to provide undergraduate students with unique opportunities to develop engineering design skills outside of the classroom, and therefore has a distinct focus on member growth and education. As an undergraduate student team, UTAT faces a unique set of challenges in onboarding members and maintaining a strong knowledge base on the team. These challenges include onboarding members with limited technical experience, equipping them with satellite design skills, and maintaining high interest levels among …

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

Small Satellite Conference

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

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 …

The Undergraduate Cubesat Experience At The University Of Minnesota, Meredith Wieber, Lindsay Glesener, Demoz Gebre-Egziabher, Marie Wulff, Trevor Knuth, Kyle Houser, Athanasios Pantazides

Small Satellite Conference

Building a satellite is a large undertaking with a lot of moving parts. Undergraduate students have complicated schedules with even more moving parts. Running a team of 60+ undergraduates toward the goal of launching a satellite is therefore quite the managerial challenge. Detailed on this poster are some specific challenges, along with strategies for mitigating them, that the UMN Small Satellite Research Lab faces in their work toward launching two small satellites.

Power Supply For Advanced High Current Payloads, Timothy Anderson, Edmund Burke, Alexander Anthougies

Small Satellite Conference

Protect, Prevent and Enclose (PPE) technologies are employed to stop cell failure propagation, limit cell-to-cell thermal transport, and safely contain flames and debris.

A Modular Hardware And Software Architecture For A Student-Designed Biocubesat Prototype Using Autonomous Operations, Mateusz Zalasiewicz, Aqeel Shamsul, Giovanni Sinclair, David Cullen, Adrien Bolliand, Amin Chabi, Miguel Martinez De Bujo, Romain Giraud, Hector Lleo, Tommaso Tonina, Nikita Shetti, Raj Panchal, Sathesh Raj, Thomas Retraint, Michael Cooke, Timothy Etheridge

Small Satellite Conference

BAMMsat-on-BEXUS is a student-led project aiming to design, manufacture, and fly a CubeSat-compatible payload on a stratospheric balloon. The payload – BAMMsat (Biology, Astrobiology, Medicine, and Materials Science on satellite) – is a modular CubeSat-format laboratory termed a bioCubeSat. The mission is realized under the bilateral REXUS/BEXUS programme run by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA), with the Swedish payload share available to students through a European Space Agency (ESA) collaboration. The core objective of the prototype payload is to perform a technology demonstration of the core bioCubeSat technology, demonstrating its capability to support …

Code In Space: Out Of This World Programming Opportunity For Students, Bassam Alfeeli, Nada Alshammari

Small Satellite Conference

This initiative was conceived to empower students to contribute to the advancement of satellite communication technology while also preparing future professionals to operate the next generation of communication satellites

Data Modelling And Code Automation For Space Systems Software, David Santos Gil, Mukesh Jha, Hessa Alshamsi

Small Satellite Conference

Due to the autonomous nature of spacecraft, on-board devices feature relatively complex functionality in their software, including interface(s) that provide telecommands and telemetry. Once in space, the devices are physically inaccessible and even a small defect can cause a major failure from which recovery is impossible. To prevent defects with such consequences, the development of on-board software for space applications requires a substantial investment in quality and additional manual work results in increased cost. Therefore, it is necessary to consider opportunities that reduce manual work while minimizing the impact in quality.

This paper presents the particular solution adopted for the …

Lessons Learned From Development Of Web-Based Mission Operations Software, Nathan Chow, Logan Pulley, Michael Lembeck

Small Satellite Conference

The Laboratory for Advanced Space Systems at Illinois (LASSI) is responsible for the development of, and mission operations for, a series of student built CubeSats. The Steven R. Nagel Mission Operations Center (MOC) provides the facilities and software systems required to track and communicate withthe satellites. Mission operations software has been designed with a flexible and familiar user experience supporting not just traditional workstations but also mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. This paper discusses the motivation behind choosing a web-based architecture for the scalable, full-stack design underlying the MOC software system. Also presented is the deliberate selection of …

Spaceteamsat1 - Giving High-School Students A Hands-On Experience In Space Software Development, Jan Pac, Raphael Böckle, David Freismuth, Benjamin Geislinger, Thomas Hirschbüchler, Patrick Kappl, Peter Kremsner, Tim Munhowen, Jakop Riepler, Daniel Schloms, Paul Schmitt, Sundas Syed, Nikolas Thiel, David Wagner

Small Satellite Conference

Educational Mission

• Enable high-school students to run software experiments on an educational payload (Raspberry Pi platform)
• Students will code their programs in Python
• Code will be sent to CubeSat via RF communication
• Code will run on educational payload
• Results will be downlinked and handed over to the students
• Students will be supported during the entire mission and receive a development kit for coding