Digital Commons Network^™

Cubesat Led Transmitter For Optical Communication Downlink, David Hinkley, Sam Pedrotty

Small Satellite Conference

The CubeSat radio frequency (RF) spectrum licensing step has always been long and therefore stressful to developers. With more satellites entering orbit, spectral congestion in the available RF frequency bands has become a problem. An optical-only solution eliminates this problem and provides a path for a lower power and higher throughput data link. The risk of a weather outage drives a solution that requires enough geographically diverse optical ground locations that a clear line-of-sight is always available. The Aerospace Corporation, with funding from NASA, has developed a CubeSat light emitting diode (LED) transmitter and an inexpensive commercial portable optical telescope …

Asynchronous One-Way Range (Aowr) – Alone Positioning And The Applications, Junichiro Kawagichi, Shingo Nishimoto

Small Satellite Conference

The paper first reports the recent operational results of the HOKUSHIN satellite. It explains how our extended code correlation method has performed and provides link threshold information, specifically the demonstrated C/N0 figures. The paper next focuses on cis-lunar space applications, beginning with direct AOWR-alone positioning directly from Earth using three or more small-aperture ground stations. The application employs a ‘Self-Positioning’ strategy. This system operates in cis-lunar space with 3-meter-class ground stations and CubeSats larger than 6U in size equipped with 200x300 mm patch-array antennas on. It enables universities and startups to conduct genuine lunar exploration. The team won the Strategic …

Magdrive Power System For Next Generation High Power Smallsat Needs, Donya Divsalar, Mark Stokes, Thomas Clayson, David Salmon, Patrick Mabin, Aksat Shah

Small Satellite Conference

The continued expansion of space activities across commercial, governmental, and defense sectors has increased the demand for reliable, flexible, and high-performance electrical power systems. In contrast to terrestrial environments where a broad range of power generation and storage solutions exist—space systems remain constrained to limited options, primarily solar arrays and batteries. These constraints introduce significant design trade-offs in mass, volume, and system complexity, often forcing spacecraft architectures to be dictated by available power rather than mission-driven performance requirements.

High-power missions are particularly affected by these limitations. Delivering elevated power levels typically requires either large battery packs or extensive solar array …

Radiation-Resilient Ai For Small Satellites: A Universal Multi-Bit Edac Architecture For Protecting On-Board Neural Network Models In Memory And Storage, Yin Sun, Nauman Wazir, Joseph Chang, Kwen-Siong Chong, Wei Shu, Hocklai They

Small Satellite Conference

The deployment of onboard artificial intelligence (AI) on small satellites enables real-time Earth-observation triage, object detection, and event-driven tasking with reduced dependence on downlink. These capabilities rely on the integrity of neural network parameters (weights and biases) stored across both volatile memory and non-volatile storage (e.g., DRAM/SRAM and SSD/SD/UFS/eMMC). In low-Earth orbit (LEO), radiation-induced upsets can flip bits in commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) memory and storage, corrupting model parameters and degrading inference accuracy. Such degradation can manifest as persistent misclassification or missed detections. Existing mitigation options are often difficult to scale within small-satellite constraints: Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR) incurs substantial mass and …

Nasa's Small Spacecraft & Distributed Systems: Development And Demonstration Of Technologies Enabling Swarms And New Spacecraft Platforms With Ai And Edge Computing, Jan Stupl, Rodolphe De Rosee, Samson Phan, Michael Gaunce, Bruce Yost, Craig Burkhard, Edward Tagalicud, Roger Hunter, Christopher Baker, Justin Treptow-Miller, Sasha Weston, Luke Idziak, Julianna Fishman, Dorothy Santos

Small Satellite Conference

NASA’s Small Spacecraft & Distributed Systems (SSDS) within the Research and Technology Mission Directorate (RTMD) expands U.S. capability to execute unique missions through targeted investment, rapid development, and flight demonstration of small spacecraft technologies applicable to exploration, science and the commercial space sector. SSDS strategically invests in technology development and on-orbit demonstrations executed across NASA, other government agencies, industry, and academia. The program’s University SmallSat Technology Partnerships initiative awards academic researchers with the opportunity to collaborate with NASA to mature innovative technology. Capabilities aligned with RTMD’s technology shortfalls and interests - power, processing, propulsion, sensors, communications, autonomous navigation, architectures, and …

Intelligence Where Data Is Born: Vision Transformer-Based On-Orbit Change Detection For Earth Sensing, Matthew Morabito, Faries Tadros, Catherine Ordun, Michael S. Sellers, Daniel Wald

Small Satellite Conference

This paper introduces a model framework for autonomous hyperspectral segmentation that couples a foundation model with a supervised segmentation head to enable compact, high performance on-orbit scene understanding. This approach is designed to deliver end-to-end onboard processing, inference, confidence scoring, and prioritization so the spacecraft performs interpretation at or near image collection time and minimizes downlink usage by transmitting only high-value or high-interest outputs rather than full image streams. A key design element is adaptive intelligence over mission lifetime: low-size, over-the-air partial models updates as small as kb-scale enable post-launch retuning and mission-specific refinement without GB-scale data transfer. By reusing …

Flight Test Of The Autonomous Navigation, Guidance, And Control (Autongc) Software On The Starling Swarm, Robert Pritchett, Nathan Stacey, Sun Hur-Diaz, Michael Romeo, Nickalas Cason, Katherine Fowee Gasaway, Nathan Esantsi, Behnam Azimi, Sean Semper, Hossein Mohammadkhan, Grant Hecht, Joseph Patton, Liam Greenlee, Justin Clavette, Alan Cudmore, Ian Hammer, Ted Hendriks, Terry Stevenson, Nahum Alem

Small Satellite Conference

Performing real-time autonomous guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) functions onboard spacecraft is critical for enabling greater spacecraft autonomy. The autoNGC (autonomous Navigation, Guidance, and Control) software suite is a collection of applications, built on the NASA core Flight System (cFS), that provides these capabilities. This paper presents results from the first flight demonstration of autoNGC, conducted on the NASA Starling mission in 2025. The Starling spacecraft's use of cFS enabled autoNGC to be uplinked and run onboard despite the spacecraft already being in orbit. The flight test had three goals: to demonstrate onboard GPS navigation, onboard state and uncertainty prediction …

Ai For Autonomous Operation Of Small Satellite Missions, Lucy Donnell, Reuben Lynch, Charlotte Crawshaw, Karl Buckley, Robert Field, Steven Kay

Small Satellite Conference

UK space industry partners Craft Prospect Ltd (CPL) and GMV deliver an advanced avionics demonstrator which incorporates cutting-edge machine learning (ML) techniques to enhance on-board autonomy for small satellite space missions. The work is funded by the European Space Agency (ESA), and the delivery partners combine expertise in embedded Artificial Intelligence (AI) and space systems engineering to target use cases for on-board autonomy which offer the best gains for a diverse range of mission types including institutional and commercial Earth observation (EO), navigation, scientific, and lunar exploration missions.

Common technical target applications have emerged as underpinning technologies which enable the …

Back From The Dead: Using Stellar Psf Calibration To Recover Operational Value From A Defocused Skysat Telescope, Phillip Linden, Hira Nadeem, Ross Losher, Venkataraman Krishnaswami

Small Satellite Conference

For large-scale Earth observation constellations, such as Planet’s SkySat fleet, a major challenge is mitigating the effects of post-launch optical aberrations, which can render an asset unusable. This paper presents a novel approach to recover operational value from SkySat-C5, which remained excluded from production for 8 years due to significant, uncorrectable focus deficit at launch. Our method leverages stars to calibrate a reliable Point Spread Function (PSF) used in a deconvolution process that restored the camera’s images to a usable level of quality.

Because there is no on-orbit focus mechanism, the only path to restoration is post-processing deconvolution using a …

Strategic Enculturation Of A Watson’S Caring Science Culture: Reflection Of A Ten-Year Journey, Grissel Hernandez, Gisso M. Oreo, Janette V. Moreno

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Summary: A Caring Science theory was used to create a culture of caring measurable through Magnet® behaviors, strategy, and initiatives then validated by patient and nursing satisfaction tools. This presentation shows the blueprint for embedding a caring culture.

Purpose: This presentation describes an academic healthcare organization’s decade-long strategic integration of Watson’s Caring Science into organizational culture, clinical practice, Magnet nursing behaviors, education, leadership, and research. It aims to provide a replicable blueprint for health systems seeking to embed heart-centered, evidence-informed care as a strategic imperative.

Methods: Caring Science was operationalized within interprofessional teams across four domains: Leadership/Legacy, Education, Praxis, and …

Interactive Insights: Using Kwla-R© To Spark Active Learning And Reflection In Nursing, Amanda Adams

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Active learning within nursing education assists in the engagement and retention of knowledge among students (Bristol et.al, 2019). The Know, Want to Know, Learned, Application – Reflection (KWLA-R) teaching tool was implemented as an innovative strategy for prework and active learning within a concept-based nursing curriculum. This approach aimed to promote active engagement and critical thinking through scaffolding knowledge (Coffman, et. al, 2023). The adaptation was executed in a hybrid format: students first completed the initial half of the KWLA-R as a ticket prior to the didactic session, answering what they already knew and what they wanted to learn about …

Nursing Home Without Walls: A Nurse-Led Innovative Home Support Program, Suzanne Dupuis-Blanchard, Alisson Hache-Chiasson, Judy Freeze, Stephanie Lagosky, Andrea Piche, Danielle Theriault

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

The United Nations (UN) Decade of Healthy Ageing (1) and the World Health Organization Sustainable Development Goals (2) both focus on improving the lives of older adults. The UN Healthy Ageing 50 (3) recently recognized global leaders who have demonstrated concrete actions to meet the needs of older adults and one such initiative is the nurse-led [Blinded Program Name] program (4).

Evidence-based and asset-based community development informed (5), [x] provides resources to long-term care facilities for them to provide services to older adults and caregivers in the community. The objectives of the program are to: 1) ensure access to appropriate …

Harnessing Synergy: Advancing Nursing Scholarship Development, Fang-Yu Chou

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Producing scholarly work is a core expectation of academic faculty in higher education, alongside responsibilities in teaching, service, curriculum development, and academic advising. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing defines academic nursing as the integration of practice, education, and research within baccalaureate and graduate programs. Nursing faculty are therefore expected to demonstrate a commitment to inquiry, generate new disciplinary knowledge, connect practice with education, and lead scholarly endeavors that advance health and health care. Yet, barriers such as limited funding and institutional support, overloaded teaching schedule and service duties, insufficient skills and knowledge in research, and role conflict between …

Identity And Cultural Humility Bring A Sense Of Belonging To The Nursing Workforce, Patricia Fernandez, Victoria Ngo, Kupiri Ackerman

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Background: Cultural humility frameworks (Tervalon & Murray-García, 1998) are widely used in clinical and professional development settings, however, little empirical evidence exists regarding their impact on teenagers and young adults. As pathway programs emerge to strengthen and diversify the healthcare workforce, understanding whether cultural humility training is developmentally appropriate and impactful for early-career learners is crucial for growing and retaining future nurse leaders.

Methods: As part of a summer pathway program designed to prepare young scholars for a career in healthcare or nursing, we offered a three-day institute that helped students from historical redlined areas to understand the unique and …

Adherence To Evidence-Based Practice In Childhood Immunization: A Mixed-Methods Study, Lydia Boampong Owusu

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Immunization is one of the most effective public health measures for preventing infectious diseases in children (Baidya et al., 2024). Immunization safety and effectiveness depends on proper injection site management (Rishovd, 2014; World Health Organization, 2018). Globally, Evidence-Based Practices (EBP) are recommended to enhance immunization effectiveness and minimize unwanted side effects (Cataldi et al., 2020). However, there is a dearth of empirical evidence on healthcare provider adherence to EBP in injection site management which presents a significant knowledge gap, especially in developing countries. This study assessed the experience and understanding of healthcare providers' adherence to EBP in administering childhood vaccines …

A Theoretical Roadmap For Understanding And Mitigating Nursing Incivility, Janet Givler, Lynn Varagona

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Nurse-to-nurse incivility remains a persistent threat to psychological safety, professional relationships, and patient outcomes. Despite growing reliance on cognitive rehearsal training as a targeted strategy, studies suggest incivility is a multidimensional issue shaped by individual behavior, organizational culture, leadership practices, and socio-behavioral forces. This integrative review examined how nine theoretical frameworks collectively deepen understanding of nursing incivility and illuminate a comprehensive, multilevel approach to intervention.

Twenty-one studies published between 2018 and 2023 and retrieved from CINAHL, Medline, ProQuest, and Ovid were appraised using the Johns Hopkins Evidence-Based Practice Model [1]. Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis guided data synthesis. Oppression Theory …

831sat: A Cubesat Subsystem Platform For Space Systems Development Education, Dominic S. Fucile, George Lordos, James Dingley, Kerri Cahoy, Paul Fucile

Small Satellite Conference

The CubeSat standard has become one of the most popular frameworks for co-curricular and extracurricular student satellite projects, yet its integration into formal curricula for space systems engineering remains limited.

Accessibility concerns:

• Students encountering satellite design for the first time face a learning curve when working with flight-representative hardware.
• Time constraints of undergraduate semesters limit the technical depth covered in a single course.
• Existing educational platforms often lack subsystem flexibility and fidelity needed to deliver an authentic systems engineering experience.

Presented is the 831Sat, a custom single board platform that provides core satellite subsystems:

• Central Processing Unit
• Electrical Power System …

Experimental Investigation Of "Structured Radio Wave" Propagation Using A Deployable Parabolic Reflector With A Uniform Circular Array, Makoto Ito, Tsukasa Funane, Yosuke Tanabe, Miki Yonehara, Hisatoshi Kimura, Keigo Nakamura, Yasuyuki Miyazaki, Satoshi Ikari, Shinichi Nakasuka, Ayako Torisaka, Koichi Watanabe

Small Satellite Conference

Poster presented at the 2026 Small Satellite Conference

Advanced Avionics: Low Swap Hpsc Box For Space Autonomy, Behnam Azimi, Sun Hur-Diaz, Hossein Mohammadkhan, Michael Romeo, Sean Semper, Alan Cudmore

Small Satellite Conference

Objective: To provide a next-generation avionics system built on NASA's High Performance Spaceflight Computing (HPSC) processor technology.

Autonomous Onboard Navigation And Mission Planning In A Lunar Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit, Carl De Vries, Robert Pritchett, Sun Hur-Diaz, Nathan Esantsi, Liam Greenlee, Ben Leser, Mike Romeo

Small Satellite Conference

autoNGC is a core Flight System (CFS) application suite that performs real-time, onboard autonomous navigation, guidance and control (autoNGC)

Schott Options For Efficient Design-To-Cost Zerodur® Optical Assemblies With Established Supply Chain Reliability, Florian Gollier, Jesse Bonfeld, Dustin Ruth, Janina Krieg, Thomas Westerhoff, Tony Hull, Jacqueline Caraballo

Small Satellite Conference

Poster presented at the 2026 Small Satellite Conference

4dof Steam Propulsion System For 1u Cubesats And Larger, David Hinkley, Jonathan Cheng, Susan Ossareh, Jeff Asher, Logan Fernandez, Brenda Valdez, Bhargav Nagarajan, Aryan Jafari, Stephen Samples

Small Satellite Conference

Aerospace developed a warm gas water vapor propulsion system for the OCSD-A mission in 2015 and redesigned it for the AeroCube-10 mission in 2019. Those were single nozzle systems. The 2019 mission performed reliably so this design is an evolution to 5 thrusters. Also new is that the main tank is additively manufactured aluminum so that tubing can be embedded and thermal management is easier.

Gigabit Ethernet Satellite Bus For Smallsat Applications: Standardizing Cots-Based High-Speed On-Board Data Communication, Lucas Felderhoff, Mathias Reibe

Small Satellite Conference

The satellite architectures of modern missions underline the increasing need to simplify and standardize on-board data buses. This requirement becomes more critical as missions demand higher data rates and greater flexibility.

Swap Optimized, Optical Communications Terminal Concepts For Lunar, Mars, Jupiter And Neptune Solar System Missions, Keith G. Petrillo, Mark Storm

Small Satellite Conference

Trinity: Fibertek's Lunar terminal

• Trinity provides a good basis for providing a low SWaP terminal for deep space communications
• Leveraging Trinity and high-power LiDAR lasers enables communications to 32AU
• Appropriate for deep space small satellites

Co-Optimization Of Optical Ground Station And Network Architecture For Secure And High-Capacity Satcom Ground Segments, Asher Novick, Romain Laigo, Laurie Paillier, Cédric Dautancourt, Julien Samaan, Pu Jian, Olivier Pinel

Small Satellite Conference

Poster presented at the 2026 Small Satellite Conference

Recap: A Study Of Downlink Optimization Methods Using Mms As A Template, Connor Firth, Conrad Schiff, Stephen Kreisler, Alexander Barrie

Small Satellite Conference

Motivations: MMS as a paradigm for downlink optimization

• MMS is a multi-agent mission requiring downlink optimization. ReCAP (Remote Coordination, Actuation, and Planning) assigns ground contacts using auctions.
• Five realistic downlink optimization cases are studied, and the amount of data downlinked is tracked to illustrate ReCAP’s ability to optimize for different criteria.
• ReCAP demonstrates value as a real-time, onboard downlink optimization tool.

Development Of The Korea's First Hyperspectral Microsatellite Constellation For Local-Scale Methane Monitoring: Narsha, Geuk-Nam Kim, Jinyoung Shin, Museong Park, Sang Hun Lee, Heewon Park, Taemin Kim, Jooin Lee, Dohyun Kim, Insun Jung, Marcin Badowski, Kiyun Park, Jae-Pil Park, Jaemin Hong, Yu-Ri Lee, Sujong Jeong, Alexandra Jercaianu, Pawel Snopek

Small Satellite Conference

Poster presented at the 2026 Small Satellite Conference

Experiences Of Nurses Managing Traumatic Hemorrhagic Shock At A Tertiary Hospital In Ghana, Gloria Achempim-Ansong, Princilla Mensah

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Background: Traumatic hemorrhagic shock is a life-threatening condition requiring immediate and effective management by emergency department nurses. Globally, trauma accounts for approximately 5.8 million deaths annually, with hemorrhagic shock contributing to 30-40% of these fatalities. The management of traumatic hemorrhagic shock in the emergency department is a complex and challenging task that requires a multidisciplinary approach and specialized nursing care. Nurses play a critical role in the early recognition, assessment, and stabilization of patients with traumatic hemorrhagic shock, as they are often the first healthcare professionals to encounter these patients in the emergency department.

The incidence of traumatic injuries and …

Redesigning Women’S Health Nurse Practitioner Curricula: Defining Population-Specific Competencies, Mary T. Hickey, Mary Fischer

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Background: In 2019, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) introduced a new vision for nursing education emphasizing competency-based education (CBE) to enhance preparation of a practice-ready Nurse Practitioner (NP) workforce¹. The National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties (NONPF) developed NP Role Core Competencies based on the new AACN Essentials. For Women’s Health Nurse Practitioners (WHNPs), defining population-specific competencies is essential to preparing practitioners who can meet the complex needs of women and gender-related health populations⁴.

Purpose: This initiative sought to identify NP core and population-specific behaviors to equip faculty with the tools for redesigning …

Adapting Missions Not Machines: Extending On-Orbit Operations To Maximize Roi, Kall Morris Inc

Small Satellite Conference

Poster presented at the 2026 Small Satellite Conference