Digital Commons Network^™

An Analytical Approach To Modeling Spacecraft Potentials In Spice, Jason Powell

Small Satellite Conference

As the use of Langmuir probes on small satellites increases, so does the need to understand how spacecraft charging affects Langmuir Probe measurements. This paper explores the important relationship between probe and spacecraft surface area, and how it relates to the floating potential (or charge) on the spacecraft. Further, this paper discusses how a charged body’s interaction with the ionosphere can be modeled using custom circuit elements designed in SPICE. The SPICE models introduced are demonstrated with the SPORT spacecraft, a 6U mission that makes Langmuir probe measurements in concert with two electric field probes used to account for the …

A Versatile And Open-Source Radio Framework For The D3 Cubesat Mission, Carlos Carrasquillo

Small Satellite Conference

This paper details the design and implementation of the communications system for the Drag De-OrbitDevice (D3) CubeSat mission. The D3 mission aims to validate the effectiveness of a novel approach to aerodynamically-based orbital maneuvering and controlled re-entry. Using four deployable tape-spring booms that can be retracted to any intermediate length, the D3 can accurately modulate the ballistic coefficient profile of the CubeSat in low Earth orbit (LEO). To compute the necessary boom deployment and reproduce a desired trajectory, the guidance profile of the CubeSat must be actively generated, which itself is a very computationally intensive process. The guidance will therefore …

A Cubesat Power System Implementing A Zero Voltage Switching Resonant Buck Converter Design With Low Electronic & Radio Frequency Noise, Christine L. Page

Small Satellite Conference

Noise from power systems can be a limiting factor in how well scientific instruments on CubeSats can perform. Instruments such as microwave radiometers which are on TROPICS, TEMPEST-D, and IceCube, or wide-band software defined radios such as those used on AERO/VISTA for Earth auroral hiss observations, or precipitation instruments used on RainCube are all affected by electronic and radio frequency (RF) noise. Current hybrid DC/DC converter technologies can also be prone to failure and anomalies during flight. The GRACE mission had the converter fail due to high temperatures, which caused a reduction in switching frequency. This research project will provide …

A Paleoseismic Study Of The Twin Lakes Fault, Mount Hood Fault Zone, Oregon, Charlie Carr, Ashley R. Streig

McNair Symposium

Recent geologic mapping on high-resolution topography from lidar has led to the discovery of a zone of active faults on Mount Hood. The Mt. Hood Fault Zone consists of four separate faults, and stretches ~55 km from south to north, and crosses the summit of Mount Hood. The focus of this study is the northern section of Twin Lakes Fault, which lies directly south of Mount Hood and adjacent to OR35 and the White River. Lidar topography reveals the west side down normal displacement on the Twin Lakes fault. The highest tectonic seismicity rates in the Mount Hood area occur …

Constellation Forecasting Tools For Autonomous Operations, Alexander Dunn, Joe Miceli, Michael Reher

Small Satellite Conference

Large constellations are quickly becoming the norm in small satellite missions. These constellations are being designed and developed faster than ever before through the utilization of smaller, heterogeneous spacecraft. Often, these constellations provide increased resiliency and capabilities over their heritage, highly tailored counterparts. The ability to replace on-orbit assets quickly and with lower costs is an advantageous feature of these large smallsat constellations. With the advent of these new architectures, though, come increased complexity in mission operations. The management and monitoring of potentially hundreds of heterogeneous space assets can be extremely challenging and negate much of the cost savings using …

Automated Fleet Commissioning Workflows At Planet, Jose Angel Gutierrez Ahumada, Kelsey Doerksen, Stefan Zeller

Small Satellite Conference

In order to maintain the world’s largest Earth Observation satellite constellation and its goal of providing daily Earth coverage, Planet procures regular launch opportunities, each including up to several dozens of new satellites. Commissioning these batches of satellites, known at Planet as “flocks”, from deployment until imaging is done by a small team of operators and depends heavily on a number of automated workflows developed at Planet. Bringing all satellites to production in a safe and timely manner has a direct link to the productivity of the entire fleet. The main bottleneck during commissioning is ground station access time with …

The Autonomous System Architecture Of The Small Sar Satellite Operation System And On-Orbit Autonomous Operation Experiences, Toshihiro Obata, Motoyuki Arai, Shoichiro Asada, Tomoyuki Imaizumi, Yutaka Suzuki

Small Satellite Conference

We are developing a small SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite for our commercial solution business. Our goal is to deploy at least 30 small SAR satellites in orbit and enable frequent and persistent observations until the Mid 2020s. We launched the satellite on 15th December 2020 by Rocket Lab's Electron. We waited for a month until we took the first image to confirm the complete evacuation of the residual air and contaminations to prevent any hazardous electrical discharge. We took the first image on 8th February. The satellite is now operating in a fine state and acquiring images requested by …

Satellite Constellations - 2021 Industry Survey And Trends, Erik Kulu

Small Satellite Conference

Large satellite constellations are becoming reality. Starlink has launched over 1600 spacecraft in 2 years since the launch of the first batch, Planet has launched over 450 in total, OneWeb over 200 and counting. Every month new constellation projects are announced, some for novel applications.

First part of the paper focuses on the industry survey of 251 commercial satellite constellations. Statistical overview of applications, form factors, statuses, manufacturers, founding years is presented including early stage and cancelled projects. Large number of commercial entities have launched at least one demonstrator satellite, but operational constellations have been much slower to follow than …

Method, System, And Computer Program Product For Dispute Resolution Using Customized Batch Files, Prasad Neelakantam, Venugopala Medahalli, Thaison Chu

Defensive Publications Series

The present disclosure related to method for dispute resolution using customized batch files is disclosed. A method may include receiving a customized batch file including disputed transaction data and metadata. The disputed transaction data may have a customized format. The customized batch file may be communicated to a repository and/or retrieved by a processing engine. The metadata associated may be detected. A mapping from the customized format to a universal format may be determined based on the metadata. The disputed transaction data may be translated from the customized format to the universal format based on the mapping. A plurality of …

Motivational Factors And Opportunities To Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics (Stem) Majors Among Native Hawaiian And Other Pacific Islanders (Nhpi), Shanthia Espinosa, Alma M. O. Trinidad

McNair Symposium

Higher education is a contentious space that poses challenges and barriers to the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. This study explores the motivational factors and opportunities to STEM fields among Native Hawaiian Pacific Islanders (NHPI). A qualitative method was used in this study, examining public archival data (e.g., videos, recordings, digital information, etc.) of self-identified NHPI scientists, scholar-activists, leaders, and their narratives of entering the STEM fields. Specifically, the portrayal of needs and promotion of NHPI representation and access were examined, including messages that inspire and encourage STEM interest among NHPI youth. This study explores motivation, opportunities, and …

Poster Awards Ceremony, Hongyan Ma

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

• 1st Place: Dongbin Kim, Missouri S&T, A Human-Embodied Drone for Dexterous Aerial Manipulation
• 2nd Place: Yu Otsuki, Georgia Tech, Autonomous ultrasonic thickness measurement using Martlet wireless sensing system integrated with a steel climbing mobile robot
• 3rd Place: Pu Jiao, Missouri S&T, INSPIRE UTC Bridge Inspection Field Campaign Update, 2021

On The Automation, Optimization, And In-Orbit Validation Of Intelligent Satellite Constellation Operations, Gregory Stock, Juan A. Fraire, Holger Hermanns, Eduardo Cruz, Alastair Isaacs, Zhana Imbrosh

Small Satellite Conference

Recent breakthroughs in technology have led to a thriving “new space” culture in low-Earth orbit (LEO) in which performance and cost considerations dominate over resilience and reliability as mission goals. These advances create a manifold of opportunities for new research and business models but come with a number of striking new challenges. In particular, the size and weight limitations of low-Earth orbit small satellites make their successful operation rest on a fine balance between solar power infeed and the power demands of the mission payload and supporting platform technologies, buffered by on-board battery storage. At the same time, these satellites …

A Novel Approach To An Autonomous And Dynamic Satellite Control System Using On-Orbit Machine Learning, Maximum Wilder-Smith, Michael Pham, Matteo Gironda, Kevin Kwik, Michael Gee, Ryan Toomer, Samuel Bennett, Nicholas Shewchuk, Ashley Mcbean, Tarek Elsharhawy

Small Satellite Conference

Classical control methods require deep analytical understanding of the system to be successfully controlled. This can be particularly difficult to accomplish in space systems where it is difficult, if not impossible, to truly replicate the operational environment in a laboratory. As a result, many missions, especially in the CubeSat form factor, fly with control systems that regularly fail to meet their operational requirements. Failure of a control system might result in diminished science collection or even a total loss of mission in severe circumstances. Additionally, future SmallSat use cases (such as for orbital debris collection, repair missions, or deep space …

The Flare Network: Vicarious Cal/Val For Earth Observation Satellites, Brandon Russell, Jeff Holt, Christopher Durrell, Will Arnold, David Conran, Arin Jumpasut, Colm Lynch, Stephen Schiller

Small Satellite Conference

Calibration and characterization of radiometric and geospatial performance is necessary for the accurate retrieval of information from Earth Observation platforms. For small satellite constellations, this is especially true to ensure data quality and consistency among multiple craft that lack on-board calibration equipment. The Field Line-of-sight Automate Radiance Exposure (FLARE) Network provides an automated, on-demand calibration solution designed to meet the requirements of both agency and commercial operators by providing NIST traceable data without the need for expensive campaigns o r on-board calibration sources. FLARE radiometric performance has been verified with Landsat 8 – OLI. FLARE was successfully utilized with Planet …

Nasa Leveraging Commercial Communication Ground Stations For Small Satellites, Yen Wong, Scott Schaire, Chitra Patel, Leslie Ambrose, Obadiah Kegege, Denise Thorsen

Small Satellite Conference

The Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program at NASA has reorganized its operations portfolio into two networks: the Deep Space Network and the new Near Space Network (NSN). With this reorganization, NASA can begin transforming to 100% direct-to-Earth commercial communications services for missions in the near-Earth region. NASA’s leveraging of commercial direct-to-Earth ground stations offers several benefits for the small satellite community, including lower cost, greater coverage, and increased technology infusion. In the fall of 2020, SCaN announced their intention to rely primarily on industry-provided communications services for missions close to Earth by 2030.

Commercial services are one way to …

Autonomous Systems Validation (Sysval) Environment For Advancing Mission Operations, Kelsey Doerksen, Karl Fischer

Small Satellite Conference

In order to maintain the health and productivity of satellites, it is crucial to develop a system that can swiftly, accurately, and effectively reproduce the on-orbit workflow and behavior a spacecraft experiences. To achieve this, Planet created the Systems Validation (SysVal) ecosystem; originally developed to validate individual spacecraft subsystem design requirements, and has evolved to encompass satellite concept of operation workflows, innovating test processes while mitigating risks through the ability to rapidly mimic on-orbit activities in a lab environment. SysVal is a fully integrated hardware and software system composed of a ground station network and a mission operations center with …

Optimization Of Tcs For Mfs On Smallsat, Sanika Birthi, Indresh Sahu, R. Sriraghu, Siddhesh Naik

Small Satellite Conference

MultiFunctional Structures (MFS) represent a paradigm shift over conventional spacecraft design methods resulting in a considerable reduction in mass, volume, and cost. It involves the integration of multiple subsystems into the structure, thereby providing space for high-performance payload options having higher weight. Thermal management of MFS is catered to by incorporating a high thermal conductivity composite sandwich panel. This is achieved by using high-thermal conductivity (HiK) face sheets made of pitch-based carbon fibers, and HiK core made of additively manufactured Aluminum truss grid. The conduction through the panel is enhanced using a core fill that acts as a thermal link …

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

Small Satellite Conference

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

On-Orbit Demonstration Of Innovative Multifunctional Membrane Structure For Ultra-Lightweight Solar Arrays And Array Antennas By 3u Cubesat Origamisat-1, Hiraku Sakamoto, Hiroshi Furuya, Hiroki Nakanishi, Akihito Watanabe, Nobuyoshi Kawabata, Toshiyuki Hori, Hiroaki Ito, Takeshi Kuratomi, Yuya Shimoda, Nana Hidaka, Kazuki Watanabe

Small Satellite Conference

The 3U CubeSat OrigamiSat-1’s deployable membrane structure is 1m-by-1m in size after deployment and is stowed in less than 1U CubeSat (10cm-by-10cm-by-8cm), including a hold-and-release mechanism. The major significance of the structural concept is that it allows the attachment of thin-film devices, such as thin-film solar cells or flexible substrates for antennas throughout the membrane. This was achieved by two features: (i) use of textile and (ii) invention of hybrid boom made of tubular carbon composite and metal convex tape. In addition, a visual membrane measurement system consisting of stereo cameras was developed. This paper describes the new technologies developed …

In-Flight Reconfiguration With System-On-Module Based Architectures For Science Instruments On Nanosatellites, Tom Neubert, Heinz Rongen, Uwe Clemens, Egon Zimmermann, Stefan Van Waasen, Martin Kaufmann, Martin Riese, Friedhelm Olschewski

Small Satellite Conference

For science payloads on nanosatellite missions, there is a great interest in cost-effective, reliable and state-of-the-art computing performance. Highly integrated system architectures combine reconfigurable System-on-Chip (SoC) devices, memory and peripheral interfaces in a single System-on-Module (SoM) and offer low resource requirements regarding power and mass, but moderate to high processing power capabilities. The major advantages of these architectures are flexibility, (re)programmability, modularity and module reuse.

However, it is a challenge to use SoM with COTS based memories devices in a radiation sensitive environment. In order to achieve these requirements, mitigation measures, such as the use of redundant or alternative memory …

Closing Remarks And Winners Announced, Hongyan Ma

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Closing Remarks and Winners Announced by INSPIRE UTC Graduate Student Poster Session Chair Dr. Hongyan Ma, Assistant Professor, Civil, Architectural & Environmental Engineering, Missouri S&T

Cd40l And Tnf-Alpha Levels After Traumatic Injury, Queen Revollido, Martin Schreiber

McNair Symposium

The biomarkers CD40 ligand and TNF-alpha are proteins that exhibit proinflammatory and prothrombotic effects. A small clinical study has shown that soluble CD40 ligand may have a role in early coagulopathy and inflammatory complications in severely injured patients. It is known that a CD40 ligand increases the production of cytokines such as TNF-alpha, thus, the current study aims to investigate the kinetics of these biomarkers and the extent of upregulation after traumatic injury. Frozen samples collected from baseline, 8, 24, and 48 hours after admission will be used. CD40 ligand and TNF-alpha levels will be quantified using Luminex that will …

Improving 3d Metric Gpr Imaging Using Robotic Data Collection And Dnn Based Processing, Jinglun Feng

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

GPR is one of the most important NDE devices to detect subsurface objects and reconstruct the underground scene. There are two challenges for GPR- based inspection, which are GPR data collection and subsurface object imaging. To address these challenges, we propose a robotic solution that automates the GPR data collection process with a free motion pattern. It facilitates the 3D metric GPR imaging by tagging the pose information with GPR measurement in real-time. We also introduce a DNN based GPR data analysis method which includes a noise removal segmentation module to clear the noise in GPR raw data and a …

Encoding Time-Series Ground Motions As Images For Convolutional Neural Networks-Based Seismic Damage Evaluation, Xinzhe Yuan

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Earthquake records can be encoded as images to classify their resulting damage states to structures based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs). Different encoding techniques such as Recurrence Plot (RP) and Wavelet Transform (WT) can be used to transfer earthquake records to images. Presently, no consensus has been reached on the understanding of the most suitable encoding technique for CNN-based seismic damage classification. In this study, we develop a new encoding technique based on Time-series Segmentation (TS) and compare it to state-of-the-art RP and WT techniques. These techniques are mainly compared based on their classification accuracy and computation efficiency.

Reveal Underground Defects Through Impact Sounding (Is) And Impact Echo (Ie), Ejup Hoxha

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Impact Echo (IE) and Impact Sounding (IS) are well-developed non-destructive evaluation (NDE) methods that are widely used for inspection of concrete structures to ensure safety and sustainability. However, it is a tedious work to collect IE and IS data along grid lines covering large target area for characterization of subsurface defects. On the other hand, data processing is very complicated and requires domain experts to interpret the results. To address the above problems, we present a robotic inspection system, to automate the data collection process and introduce data analytics software to visualize the inspection results allowing non-professionals to easily understand …

Autonomous Ultrasonic Thickness Measurement Using Martlet Wireless Sensing System Integrated With A Steel Climbing Mobile Robot, Yu Otsuki

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

The objective of this research is to develop an autonomous ultrasonic thickness measurement system for steel bridge members through the integration of wireless sensing and robotics. The ultrasonic thickness measurement is achieved using a transducer that requires access to only one side of a steel bridge member. Building upon the Martlet wireless sensing platform, this project first develops pulser and ultrasonic daughter boards to generate a pulse excitation and to filter and amplify the received ultrasonic signal. The developed Martlet wireless ultrasonic device is next integrated with a steel climbing mobile robot developed by University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). The …

Comparing Heavy Metal Content Found In Spinach (Spinacia Oleracea) Grown On The Roof And Ground Sites At Portland State University, Tyler Robin, Gwynn R. Johnson, Olyssa Starry

McNair Symposium

As a result of urbanization, fresh, healthy food can be expensive and easily contaminated but space for local farming is limited. Roofs can be underutilized in densely populated cities and can offer a space for local fresh farming. The purpose of this study is to find if growing leafy vegetables on the roof can limit heavy metal exposure from air pollutants. By growing Spinach on five roofs and five ground locations around the Portland State University campus, at varying heights, we can extract the heavy metals found in these greens and compare them to each other. The expected results show …

Drone Vision-Based Clamping Strategy For Bridge Inspection, Bo Shang

INSPIRE-UTC Annual Meetings

Most bridges in the United States are near their designed lifetime. So, policy needs bridges to be inspected every two years. Currently, most of those inspections are done by human which needs to block the traffic and can cause injury. MST INSPIRE-UTC’s project Bridge Inspection Robot Deployment Systems (BIRDS) tries to develop a flying and climbing platform that has the following benefit:

• Capturing high quality data for inspection without vibration;
• Free of blocking traffic;
• Operator and inspector are safe.

Ronald E. Mcnair Scholars Program Profiles And Abstracts 2021, Mcnair Scholars Program

McNair Symposium

This is the complete event program and provides presentation abstracts and biographies of McNair scholars and their mentors.

Nasa Science Mission Directorate Rideshare Office, Alicia Mendoza-Hill, Alan Zide, David Cheney

Small Satellite Conference

A Rideshare Office has been recently established within NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) and is focused on implementing the SMD-wide rideshare strategy outlined in the SMD Rideshare Policy (Science Policy DirectiveSPD-32). The goal of the office is to foster the maximizing of science, exploration, and technology return on investment by enabling rideshare or accommodation opportunities for secondary payloads on SMD primary mission launches. Sharing access to space is possible when a primary payload’s launch configuration has excess performance that can be shared with compatible secondary payloads. The SMD Rideshare Office will serve as the single point of contact in SMD …