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Model To Predict Solar Eclipse Impacts On Cygnss Mission Operations, Zach Wiens, Jillian Redfern, Amanda Alexander, Brian Magee, Sam Jones, William Wells, Caden Gobat

Small Satellite Conference

Launched into low-Earth orbit in 2016, the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) mission is a constellation of eight small satellites that studies hurricanes and soil moisture. The spacecraft orbit in a fixed orientation with the instrument pointed nadir and the main solar array pointed zenith. During high beta angle seasons – periods during which the magnitude of angle between the Sun vector and the orbit plane is large – the solar arrays generate less power, so mission operators roll the spacecraft 10-16° towards the Sun. This maintains the battery state of charge above the safe-mode threshold. After nine years …

Software Defined Swarms, Nathan Benz, Scott Miller, Jeff Huang, Sonny Hwang, Todd Sarshad, Edmund De La Cruz, Thomas Magesarcher

Small Satellite Conference

The Starling Extended Mission has demonstrated the transformative potential of software-defined architectures in multi-spacecraft swarms. Building on the original Starling mission, which validated autonomous coordination and networking among small satellites, the extended phase focused on adaptability—updating onboard payload software and software-defined radios (SDRs) to enable entirely new experiments without hardware modifications. This capability signals a new approach: spacecraft swarms can evolve post-launch to meet emerging scientific and operational objectives. 

Central to this extension was the deployment of new software enabling two-way ranging and “reverse GPS” source identification using raw radio frequency (RF) signals. Traditionally, ranging and navigation rely on pre-integrated …

The Space Cognitive Network: From Fractionated Spacecraft To Collaborative Ai-Enabled Space Infrastructure, Owen Brown, Dennis Gatens, Fred Kennedy, John Moberly, Rusty Thomas, Derek Tournear

Small Satellite Conference

Over the past two decades, small satellite architectures have undergone a fundamental transformation — from platform-centric spacecraft, to globally distributed data-centric constellations. This paper traces that evolution and argues that a third shift is now underway: cognition-centric space architectures enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) as infrastructure. 

We begin by revisiting one of the earliest disruptive space architecture concepts: the fractionated satellite. Developed at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the mid-2000s, the fractionation concept decomposes a monolithic spacecraft into distributed elements. While the original vision emphasized physical subsystem decomposition, the System F6 program ultimately revealed that the greatest …

Scaling High-Resolution Operations: Implementing Automated Anomaly Response In The Skysat Constellation Via Dove Heritage, Hira Nadeem, Shannon Kyle Cabrera Deleon, Alexander Bauer

Small Satellite Conference

As Planet operates the world's largest commercial Earth observation satellite fleet, the transition from manual mission operations to autonomous systems has become a cornerstone of the ability to image Earth’s landmass each day. Planet operates a constellation consisting of hundreds of Dove satellites, approximately 15 SkySats, and a growing number of Pelican and Tanager satellites. As these on-orbit assets grow in both number and complexity, the move toward heterogeneous fleet management has required a unified approach to automation that spans across diverse satellite architectures concurrently and seamlessly. 

Drawing on the robust heritage of its large-scale Dove constellation, Planet has evolved …

Design Mechanism Framework For Autonomous Small Satellite Constellations – A Newspace Outlook, Mohammed Irfan Rashed

Small Satellite Conference

The increasing deployment of small satellite constellations is driving a transition from isolated spacecraft missions toward distributed and coordinated space operations. However, as constellation size and mission complexity grow, traditional ground-centric operational approaches become difficult to scale due to communication limitations, delayed decision-making, and increased operational workload. While autonomy has been widely explored through onboard algorithms and artificial intelligence techniques, there remains limited focus on how autonomy should be integrated into the systems engineering architecture of constellation missions. This paper presents a Design Mechanism Framework (DMF) for autonomous small satellite constellations that embeds autonomy directly into mission architecture, operational logic, …

Satellite Constellations 2026 - Survey, Trends And Economic Viability, Erik Kulu

Small Satellite Conference

This paper presents the commercial satellite constellation landscape as of Jan 1, 2026. It is based on data from the public NewSpace Index (www.newspace.im), which has tracked commercial constellations since 2016 and contained 456 entries by the end of 2025. 

Many constellation operators have launched initial satellites or small batches, but only a few have reached regular launch rates. Deployment has generally been slower than announced, with many projects scaling back plans or delaying timelines. SpaceX has a significant lead, having launched more than 11,000 Starlink satellites. The next largest commercial operators, Planet and OneWeb, remain well below 1000 satellites. …

Development And Pre-Flight Verification Of The 6u Cubesat Vertecs For Extragalactic Background Light Observation, Ryo Hashimoto, Kei Sano, Takao Nakagawa, S. Matsuura, A. Takahashi, K. Takimoto, K. Tsumura, J. R. Cordova-Alarcon, V. H. Schulz, N. C. Örger, D. Nakayama, E. E. Areda, R. J. G. Rosales, T. Fuse, K. Hamada, Y. Otani, B. V. H. Kumar, K. A. Hil, A. R. S. Islam, T. Tome, Y. Yasudao, C. Narongphun, S. Nakagawa, H. Tanaka, Y. Hirose, Y. Iwaki, A. Ikeda, A. Ojika, Y. Oohara, A. Tsumoto, K. Kurosaki, E. Fukumoto, C. Arakawa, H. Masuno, A. Oho, M. Ebisu, I. Jikuya, M. Cho, H. Masui, H. Matsuhara, N. Isobe, Y. Miyazaki, S. Ikari, Y. Yatsu, T. Wada, R. Funase, K. Hirako, R. Hirose, Y. Ofuji Aoyanagi, T. Goto, T. Hashimoto, V. V. V. Rao, C. Wu

Small Satellite Conference

The extragalactic background light (EBL) (Fig. 1) is the diffuse light arriving from outside our Galaxy. Previous studies revealed that the near-infrared EBL is several times brighter than the integrated galaxy light (IGL).

This excess may originate from the first stellar objects in the early universe or from intrahalo light. Their spectra differ in the visible range (Fig. 2), so the visible EBL is the key to identifying the origin.

Ground-based observations are contaminated by foregrounds such as airglow. We therefore developed VERTECS (Visible Extragalactic background RadiaTion Exploration by CubeSat) to observe the EBL from space.

Development Of Piezo Fast Steering Mirrors For Fso Inter-Satellite Communication, Frank Claeyssen, Arnaud Gilson, Thomas Maillard, David Ferris, Xavier De Lepine, Oliver Sosnicki, Jocelyn Rebufa, Clément Cote, Francis Bortolaso, Pascal Mexe

Small Satellite Conference

To allow faster communication between satellites, Radio Frequency (RF) links are being replaced by laser optical links, often called Free-Space Optical Communication (FSO). Each satellite embeds several optical communication terminals (OCT), each one needing two Fast Steering Mirrors (FSM) for laser beam fine and fast steering. Thus, for some giant constellations, the total number of FSM can reach up to 100 000 FSM. This New Space market induces not only technical challenges, such as good SWaP, but also industrial challenges, in particular reproducibility, cost-effectiveness and low cost of ownership vs Orbit segment. To address these various FSM needs, CEDRAT TECHNOLOGIES …

High-Torque Reaction Wheels For Agile Small Satellites, Thomas Brunsgaard, Matt Carton, Kearney Lackas

Small Satellite Conference

Blue Canyon Technologies has developed a high-torque reaction wheel (RW) product line to meet the growing attitude control demands of next-generation small spacecraft. As small satellites expand into missions requiring rapid retargeting and precise pointing, spacecraft agility is foundational to mission performance. More targets equal more data collection, translating to greater mission insight and revenue generation. 

This paper describes Blue Canyon’s approach to product line architecture that enabled rapid development and deployment of high-torque reaction wheels across multiple size classes. The high-torque variants deliver 0.5 Nm of torque, representing a 2X increase over standard configurations with 60% of the baseline …

Shining A Spotlight On Maritime Dark Traffic, Alex Da Silva Curiel, Darren Jones, Rob Knight, Rupert Taylor, Leo Jofeh, Sir Martin Sweeting, Per Atle Våland, Simon Flack, Patrik Mandelin, Håkon Heier

Small Satellite Conference

The ability to support Maritime Domain Awareness from space using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) has been successfully demonstrated in the past, however practical challenges in achieving the necessary area coverage, temporal coverage and spatial resolution for a practical system has eluded wider adoption. Yet demand for Maritime Surveillance has increased in recent years, to protect important maritime energy and communications infrastructure, fisheries, and maritime reserves, and especially for maintaining national security and territorial integrity. A novel approach to the SAR payload design solves these challenges, and smallsat technologies have also matured to the point where a High-Resolution Wide-Swath (HRWS) system …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Tennessee State Museum Summer 2026 Newsletter & Calendar Of Events, Tennessee. State Museum.

Tennessee State Museum

No abstract provided.

From Competition To Complementarity: A Case Study Of Arabic-English Language Ideologies At University Of Bisha, Ahmed Yahya Mohammed Al-Hakami

UB Journal for Humanities

This study investigates the coexistence of, and tension between, Arabic and English language ideologies in Saudi higher education, focusing on University of Bisha as a case study. Drawing on quantitative data from online questionnaires (N = 138), this study examines how Arabic and English are ideologically valued, legitimised, and contested across three dimensions, namely identity, academic learning, and status. Using robust statistical analyses, including correlation and repeated-measures testing, the analysis tests whether these ideologies function primarily as competing forces, privileging one language at the expense of the other, or as complementary resources that support students’ academic experience and professional ambition. …

Paragliding The Cliff Edge: Introducing Open Mic Studies. A Creative Response To Navigating The Post-18 Landscape For Young Adults With Send., James Tarling, Charlie Robinson, Nick Hall, Sammy Shepherd

Plymouth Interdisciplinary Education Open Journal

This conceptual article investigates novel ways of thinking about Open Mic Nights (OMN) – performance spaces understood as free, community arts and performance opportunities where the members of the public are welcome to perform music, poetry and comedy in front of an audience. For the purposes of this article, music-related OMN that take place in pubs or community centres are discussed.

The article is intended to be a primer for OMN studies that offers new and emerging trailheads for future research and discussion. Its central focus is how OMN may benefit the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) community with …

Grounded Multi-Agent Ai System For Automated Publisher Analysis And Remediation, N/A

Defensive Publications Series

Digital publishers may face challenges in interpreting complex performance data to identify technical issues or monetization opportunities. The disclosed technology describes a system that can utilize a multi-agent artificial intelligence architecture to ingest and process varied data sources to detect anomalies. An orchestrator agent may delegate analysis to specialized sub-agents, which can use a retrieval-augmented generation engine grounded in a corpus of verifiable data to perform root cause analysis and formulate solutions. The system can present findings in a narrative format and may include an action engine to facilitate remediation, assisting users in converting performance data into actionable strategy and …

Alternative Api Manufacturing Routes To Alimatravir (Mk-8527) - Version 1.0, Ryan Littich, Douglas Klumpp, Titas Deb, Li-Mei Jin

Defensive Publications Series

In this study, known chemical syntheses of MK-8527 (alimatravir) were examined and new synthetic routes proposed.

The baseline route to alimatravir was described in the 2015 Merck patent (WO2015148746A1). It involves a chemical synthesis of MK-8527 (no biocatalysis). Because of its similarities to islatravir (MK-8591), there has been a considerable amount of synthetic work related to this nucleoside structure. This synthetic chemistry is also briefly summarized.

Three synthetic routes are proposed with the aim of lowering the cost and improving the accessibility of MK-8527. In Proposed Route 1, the single enantiomer furanose intermediate (Cpd 31) is prepared from …

Multilingual Entity Mention Detection Using A Late-Fusion Transformer And Named-Entity-Recognition Architecture With Script-Aware Post-Filter Verification, Kaustav Saha, Shwetank Raghuvanshi, Batool Haider, Kliton Andrea, Chenhui Hu, Subramanian Srinivasan, Ashwin Kesireddy, Zscaler

Defensive Publications Series

A system and method for detecting entity mentions in multilingual text are disclosed. A shared multilingual transformer encoder produces a pooled representation from a tokenized representation of an item of text. A named-entity-recognition (NER) feature extraction module produces an NER feature vector from the item of text and a configured entity list, the NER feature vector including exact-match, fuzzy-similarity, entity-overlap, organization-entity, position-score, and mention-frequency components. A late-fusion concatenation module concatenates the pooled representation with the NER feature vector after and external to encoder layers of the shared multilingual transformer encoder to form a joint representation. A classification head produces an …

Multi-Signal Fusion Architecture For Semantic Leak Detection In Large Language Model Inputs, Kaustav Saha Saha, Shwetank Raghuvanshi, Batool Haider, Kliton Andrea, Chenhui Hu, Subramanian Srinivasan, Ashwin Kesireddy, Zscaler, Inc.

Defensive Publications Series

A system detects semantic leakage of contextual information in a prompt to a large language model (LLM) by extracting, in parallel from a reference context and a user input, a cosine similarity signal from multilingual sentence embeddings, an entity overlap signal from extracted named entities, and a number match signal from extracted numerical patterns. Fusion weights are selected from a plurality of language-tier weight profiles based on a detected language of the user input, and a fused score is computed as a weighted combination of the signals. The reference context and the user input are routed onto a fast trigger …

Development Of Quantum Cryptographic Algorithm For Next Generation Secure Systems, Gururaja Ts Mr

Theses and Dissertations

The rapid advancement of digital communication and quantum technologies are developing at an accelerated pace makes cybersecurity and data protection a big challenge. The traditional cryptographic methods are increasingly under attack by phishing, brute force, cryptanalytic attack and threats of quantum computing. This research presents a quantum-secure communication based on Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG), Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), Quantum Image Encryption (QIE) and secure quantum key access using a dongle-based hardware.

QRNG models were designed in the quantum simulator and hardware. The sequences produce high entropy and they passed the statistical randomness tests with p-values higher than 0.01 indicates …

Timofey V V. Usa

2026 Decisions

USDC for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

Key Technologies And Their Application Of Vertical Large Models For Geological Guarantee In Coal Mining, Liu Zaibin, Fan Tao, Liu Borui, Chen Changyuan, Li Guihong, Li Wei, Jing Xiaotian, Li Xiping, Du Yiming

Coal Geology & Exploration

Background General-purpose large language models (LLMs) have remarkable capabilities in natural language understanding and complex-task reasoning. However, when applied to geological guarantee in coal mining, these models still suffer from several inherent limitations, including insufficient professional geological knowledge, limited insights into industrial terminology, and inadequate integration of engineering logic and rules. Consequently, they face challenges in accurately capturing domain-specific knowledge and reasoning mechanisms required for geological interpretation, early warning of disasters, and decision-making for disaster prevention and control. These issues lead to limited applicability and reliability of general-purpose LLMs. On the other hand, geological guarantee in coal mining involves multi-source …

Selection And Verification Of Optimal Key Parameters Of Ultra-Wideband Radars For Life Detection In Coal-Rock Shielding Environments In Coal Mines, Huang Yuan, Zheng Xuezhao, Wen Hu, Jin Feiyang, Xu Chengyu, Liu Yin, Ding Wen

Coal Geology & Exploration

Objective and Methods Ultra-wideband (UWB) radars can transmit electromagnetic waves that penetrate coal and rock media, thereby addressing the challenge of detecting and localizing personnel trapped in shielding environments during mine collapse. However, key parameters for UWB radar detection are difficult to determine due to complex mine environments, diverse media, and unclear dispersion characteristics. To deal with this issue, this study determined the frequency-dependent dielectric properties of various coal and rock media, as well as human tissues, through experiments and fitting. In combination with actual rescue scenarios, this study established the electromagnetic equivalent model of shielding environments in coal mines. …

Factors Influencing The Build-Up Rate Of Small-Diameter Rotary Steerable Systems In Underground Coal Mines, Yang Dongdong, Li Quanxin, Zhang Youzhen, Chen Long, Chu Zhiwei, Jiang Bici, Wang Bo, Yan Wenchao

Coal Geology & Exploration

Objective Intelligent drilling represents an important part of intelligent coal mine construction. However, measurement-while-drilling (MWD) directional drilling, the core of underground intelligent drilling operations, currently suffers from several limitations, including the high dogleg severity of wellbore trajectories, low drilling efficiency, and poor hard-rock penetration. Rotary steerable system (RSS) technology has emerged as a key approach to addressing these limitations owing to its high-precision control on drilling trajectories. Methods This study systematically analyzed the factors influencing the build-up rate of small-diameter, push-the-bit RSSs using a modified 3-point circle method and the longitudinal beam bending method. Through theoretical modeling, the coupled impacts …

Machine Learning-Based Diagnosis Of Fracture-Induced Lost Circulation And Intelligent Selection Of Lost Circulation Control Fluids, Sun Huan, Zhu Mingming, Wang Jinshu, Yao Lu, Zhou Fangfang, Tan Xuebin, Sun Yan, Qu Yanping, Chen Ning

Coal Geology & Exploration

Objective and Method Drilling operations in the Changqing area face several challenges in lost circulation, including complex types, significantly different characteristics, and difficulty in designing plugging formulations. To address these issues, this study proposes a DSX-Hybrid coupled intelligent decision-making framework, which serves as an integrated scheme to identify lost circulation channels, perform intelligent selection of plugging formulations, and offer recommendations on construction process. In this framework, given the scarcity of labeled log data, the density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN) is employed to mine latent geological characteristics of unlabeled data. Then, the self-attention convolutional neural network (SACNN) is …