Digital Commons Network^™

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 …

Innovations In The Field Of On-Board Scheduling Technologies, Temenuzhka Avramova, Alessandro Benetton, Christian Cardenio, Riccardo Maderna

Small Satellite Conference

Space missions are characterized by long distances, difficult or unavailable communication and high operating costs. Moreover, complexity has been constantly increasing in recent years. For this reason, improving the autonomy of space operators is an attractive goal to increase the mission reward with lower costs. This paper proposes an onboard scheduler, that integrates inside an onboard software framework for mission autonomy. Given a set of activities, it is responsible for determining the starting time of each activity according to their priority, order constraints, and resource consumption. The presented scheduler is based on linear integer programming and relies on the use …

Id, Gps Tracking, 24/7 Tag Link For Cubesats And Constellations: Flight Results, Matthew C. Voss, Jeff F. Dailey, Matthew B. Orvis, Hank D. Voss, Ken Kiers, Stefan Brandle, Andrew Glaze, Art White, Jeffrey Roberts, Mike Coletti, Mike Miller

Small Satellite Conference

The tiny 40-gram EyeStar-Tag processor, GPS, and radio link will ID its satellite with GPS and critical status data within a minute after turn-on. The autonomous low power EyeStar Tag GPS (20mW for 3D lock) is now at TRL-9 based on the successful release and operation of the Spaceflight Inc. ring on the 1/24/2021 rideshare launch. The orbit (530 km polar) was projected using GPS seven element arrays to generate, on the fly, the future ephemeris predictions while monitoring critical fight systems. The Tag continues to transmit over the Globalstar network of satellites and ground stations the GPS elements and …

Unisat-7: A Flexible Iod Platform With Orbital Maneuvering Capabilities, Riccardo Di Roberto, Nicola Sparvieri, Filippo Graziani, Nicolas Bellomo, Daniele Pavarin, Elena Toson, Fabiana Milza

Small Satellite Conference

New Space technology for Small Satellites has greatly advanced in the past five years. These progresses shall match with a swift integration and testing phase, to be readily marketable, therefore IOD missions are essential to expedite project outcomes.

GAUSS has started working on Small Satellites since 1990s, with its first satellite, UNISAT, launched in 2000. In 2013, UNISAT-5 was the first platform to accomplish in-orbit-release of third-party satellites, with UNISAT-6 following in less than one year.

UNISAT-7 is the latest addition to the UNISAT series: a 32kg microsatellite designed and manufactured by GAUSS Srl (a spin-off company of Scuola di …

Implementation Of Rfid In Arignar Anna Central Library, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore: A Case Study, Anandhi C Sr, Sarangapani Ramasamy Sr

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), a technology that uses radio waves to automatically identify items or individuals. The library started utilizing RFIDs system to supplant their electro-attractive and bar code system in the last part of the 1990s. This paper attempts to discover detailed information about the new implementation of RFID in Arignar Anna Central Library and focuses on a different component of the system and their standards. The AACL started using RFID in the year 2017 under the supervision of the University Librarian, for their regular activities like circulation, shelf management, stock verification shelf rectification, and theft detection, etc. …

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 …

Spectrum Sensing Of Cognitive Radio For Leo Cubesat Swarm Inter-Communication, Chengtao M. Xu, Thomas Yang, Houbing H. Song

Small Satellite Conference

Low earth orbit CubeSat swarms provide improvement in the spatial and temporal resolution of remote sensing, rural communication and space exploration due to their innovative and economical satellite design. Unlike conventional large satellites, which demand high transmission power for data exchange, the CubeSat swarm communication system provides interoperability, high data rate between networked nodes, and global coverage with real-time measurement. The main challenges facing CubeSat swarms include inefficient usage of spectrum resources and increased delay of data exchange, and the issues become more severe with increased number of on-orbit CubeSats. Often, Spectrum sensing in cognitive radio is proposed as a …

La Jument: Student Created Cubesat For Remote Sensing And Software Testing, Eugene Park, David Barnhart, David Gutierrez, Eva Prestamo, Morgan Farrier, Spencer Wedel, Stephen Hunt

Small Satellite Conference

La Jument is USC’s 4th CubeSat mission built in partnership with Lockheed Martin to carry their payload to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). USC’s primary research goal for this project is creating a transmission system between the student run ground station at USC’s campus and the spacecraft in orbit.

Tumnanosat, 1u Kibocube Nanosatellite Developed At The Technical University Of Moldova, Viorel Bostan, Nicolae Secrieru, Valentin Ilco, Vladimir Melnic, Alexei Martiniuc, Vladimir Varzaru

Small Satellite Conference

The National Center for Space Technologies (NCST) of Technical University of Moldova (TUM) has been oriented towards a series of nanosatellites, according to the international standard CubeSat. In 2019, NCST participated in the fourth round of the KiboCUBE Program with the nanosatellite "TUMnanoSAT".

KiboCUBE Program is a collaboration between UNOOSA and JAXA that aims to provide to the United Nations Organization members opportunity to launch CubeSat satellites developed for educational and research purposes.

The NCST team was selected by the Japan Aerospace Agency (JAXA) and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) for the fourth round of the …

Exploring The Det Vs Mppt Trade For Cubesat To Espa Sized Earth-Orbiting Spacecraft, Aaron Aboaf, Jerome Hittle

Small Satellite Conference

Previous research has evaluated different EPS topologies from efficiency, reliability, and cost perspectives, but has yet to incorporate orbital dynamics and mission attitude constraints into the overall evaluation of the most effective eps topology for a specific mission's needs. For efficient system architecture design, systems engineers must quickly assess the orbit-average maximum load that can be accommodated based on the orbit, pointing constraints, solar array collection area, and EPS efficiency to determine operational feasibility. The authors present preliminary findings showing that attitude constraints and the inclination/β-angle have significant effects on the available energy the spacecraft can capture and …

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 …

Automated Fault-Detection For Small Satellite Pointing Control Systems Using One-Sided Learning, Yujia Huang, Philip A. Ferguson

Small Satellite Conference

In this paper, we propose a ground-based automated novelty detection system for a small satellite attitude dynamics control system using a one-sided learning algorithm: One-Class Support Vector Machine (OC-SVM) method. This fault-detection system was designed to only learn from nominal behavior of the satellite during the commissioning phase and to identify and detect anomalies when there was a subtle behavioral failure in the attitude control system. The detection system was trained by only observing the nominal attitude dynamics behavior of a small satellite for a period of time. Training data was obtained from reaction wheel outputs in a healthy attitude …

Osam-2 Capabilities, Trey Clinton, Sean Lantto

Small Satellite Conference

Archinaut Development

• Phase 1: Additive Manufacturing proven in a simulated LEO environment in June 2017
• Phase 1 Option: Combination demonstrated in a simulated LEO environment in September 2018
• Phase 2: Class D NASA flight demonstration mission to autonomously manufacture polymer beams on orbit

Proliferated Leo Constellation Modeling & Simulation With Information Assurance, Leigh Anderson, David Anderson, Jeremy Fix

Small Satellite Conference

Proliferated Low Earth Orbit (pLEO) constellations allow for network, on-orbit processing, and battlefield management resiliency through disaggregation of the traditionally small number of high-value space assets. pLEO constellations present unique challenges. Developing a complex mesh network able to dynamically recover from active counterspace, cyber-security, and environmental threats, while providing uninterrupted data-center-like processing, requires advanced modeling capability throughout its buildout. Management of resource utilization, task migration, data fusion, software and firmware updates, and distribution of intelligence across the constellation requires complex integration and autonomy. Mission execution requires secure communication between the pLEO constellation and all consumers. The path to developing solutions …

Attitude And In-Orbit Residual Magnetic Moment Estimation Of Small Satellites Using Only Magnetometer, Raunak Srivastava, Roshan Sah, Kaushik Das

Small Satellite Conference

Attitude estimation or determination is a fundamental task for satellites to remain effectively operational. This task is furthermore complicated on small satellites by the limited space and computational power available on-board. This, coupled with a usually low budget, restricts small satellites from using high precision sensors for its especially important task of attitude estimation. On top of this, small satellites, on account of their size and weight, are comparatively more sensitive to environmental or orbital disturbances as compared to their larger counterparts. Magnetic disturbance forms the major contributor to orbital disturbances on small satellites in Lower Earth Orbits (LEO). This …

Coordinating Development Of The Swarm-Ex Cubesat Swarm Across Multiple Institutions, Rohil Agarwal, Braden Oh, David Fitzpatrick, Anton Buynovskiy, Shane Lowe, Celvi Lisy, Anargyros Kriezis, Berwin Lan, Zoe Lee, Austen Thomas, Brodie Wallace, Emanuele Costantino, Grant Miner, Jeffrey Thayer, Simone D'Amico, Kristina Lemmer, Whitney Lohmeyer, Scott Palo

Small Satellite Conference

The Space Weather Atmospheric Reconfigurable Multiscale Experiment (SWARM-EX) is a National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored CubeSat mission distributed across six colleges and universities in the United States. The project has three primary goals: (1) contributing to aeronomy and space weather knowledge, (2) demonstrating novel engineering technology, and (3) advancing higher education. The scientific focus of SWARM-EX is to study the spatial and temporal variability of ion-neutral interactions in the equatorial Ionosphere-Thermosphere (I-T) region. Since the mission consists of three spacecraft operating in a swarm, SWARM-EX will take in-situ measurements of the neutral and ion composition on timescales of less than …

Small Satellite Reliability: A Decade In Review, Raja Pandi Perumal, Holger Voos, Florio Dalla Vedova, Hubert Moser

Small Satellite Conference

Advances in the small satellite combined with the availability of low-cost launches have led to an increasing number of space missions. As space is more accessible than ever before, new and innovative missions arise. A broad understanding of reliability trends on satellites can guide these future missions towards success. As a result, more and more space industries are focusing on reliability in the early stages of the design. The goal of this paper is to investigate the reliability of small satellites launched over the last three decades. Satellites launched between January 1990 - December 2019 and weighing between 40kg - …

Mata-Rl: Continuous Reaction Wheel Attitude Control Using The Mata Simulation Software And Reinforcement Learning, Vanessa Tan, John Leur Labrador, Marc Caesar Talampas

Small Satellite Conference

As earth observation satellites, Diwata microsatellites need to have a high degree of target pointing accuracy. Additionally, being in low orbit, they could experience strong external disturbances. Current methods for attitude control have proven to be effective. However, they are prone to changes in control and mass parameters. In this paper, we explore using Deep Reinforcement Learning (RL) for attitude control. This paper also leverages on Diwata’s simulator, MATA: Mission, Attitude, and Telemetry Analysis (MATA) software, in training the RL agent. We implemented two RL algorithms: Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) and Soft Actor-Critic (SAC). We then simulated different scenarios and …

Improving Ground Station By Reducing System Noise And Losses, Peter W. Pachowicz, Paul Chominski, Jay Deorukhkar

Small Satellite Conference

This paper presents the GMU SatCom Ground Station design and implementation which is dedicated to increasing the quality of a communication downlink by reducing system noises and losses in the receiver path. The design follows practices of the Earth-Moon-Earth (EME) communication community. This effort was focused on the design of the LFA-type Yagi antennas, lightweight ultra-low noise amplifiers, small BPF filters, and combining polarizations through Software Define Radio (SDR) rather than at the antenna feed. All designs presented were implemented and tested. While the UHF path had a priority in our effort, a design of the VHF path is also …

Connecting Mission Profiles And Radiation Vulnerability Assessment, Richard H. Nederlander, Kaitlyn L. Ryder, Arthur F. Witulski, Gabor Karsai, Nag Mahadevan, Brian D. Sierawski, Ronald D. Schrimpf, Robert A. Reed, Michael J. Campola, Rebekah A. Austin

Small Satellite Conference

Radiation vulnerability assessment early in spacecraft development is cheaper and faster than in late development phases. RGENTIC and SEAM are two software platforms that can be coupled to provide this type of early assessment. Specifically, RGENTIC is a tool that outputs descriptions of radiation risks based on a selected mission environment and the system’s electronic part portfolio, while SEAM models how radiation-induced faults in electronic parts propagate through a system. In this work, we propose a spacecraft evaluation flow where RGENTIC’s outputs, which are radiation vulnerabilities of electronic parts for a given mission, become inputs to SEAM, resulting in an …

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 …

On-Orbit Eldrs Instrument: Bjts On Nasa Space Environment Testbed, Adalin R. Benedetto, Hugh J. Barnaby, Cheyenne Cook, Michael J. Campola, Anna Tender

Small Satellite Conference

Flight data on bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) are recorded to characterize the effect of low dose rate (LDR) space irradiation; results are comparable to ground-based LDR and elevated temperature tests. Additionally, Gummel plots of mission data are compared for different device under test (DUT) experiment variables.

Heater-Free, Lowest Power Consumption & Highest Volume Availability Gas-Generator Propulsion System - Most Suitable For Micro To Nano Satellites, Tiago Monteiro Padovan, Junichiro Kawaguchi

Small Satellite Conference

Patchedconics, LLC. of Japan successfully delivered a gas generator propulsion system to a Japanese venture satellite company, ALE, in 2019, and now presents the new product featuring Heater-free, Lowest Power Consumption & Highest Volume Availability Gas-Generator Propulsion System. It is the most suitable solution for Micro to Nano Satellites with significant cost reduction.

To create such propulsion units, which fit especially for micro to nano satellites, key intellectual assests were developed. This system continuously vaporizes a liquidized gas in space. Vaporizing systems are not new technology. However, Patchedconics way is different, and allows gas generation without heater, through its proprietary …

An Exploration Of The Small Satellite Value Chain And The Future Of Space Access, Kishen Raghunath, Jin S. Kang

Small Satellite Conference

“Space is hard” is a saying that has been made popular in the last few years. It is not just the engineering that is challenging, but also applies to the business of space as well. From supply chain to regulation, the space industry’s infrastructure is not prepared to handle the influx of demand forecasted through the next decade, especially in the small satellite segment. Accordingly, space businesses are looking to cost effectively and quickly build and deploy space payloads while being able to refresh their technologies as advancements are made on Earth. In this paper, we will explore a small …

Miura 5: The European And Reusable Microlauncher For Cubesats And Small Satellites, Pablo Gallego Sanmiguel

Small Satellite Conference

PLD Space is a European company with the goal of providing easy and frequent access to space. The company aims to provide launch services for suborbital applications such as scientific research or technology development as well as orbital launches for small satellites. For this, PLD Space is developing two dedicated, reusable launch vehicles named MIURA 1 and MIURA 5.

MIURA 1 was conceived as a one-stage suborbital sounding rocket which uses a liquid propulsion system fully designed and built by PLD Space. MIURA 5 –is a two-stages launch vehicle for small satellites with also fully in-house propulsion, structures and avionics …

Smallsat Booming Growth Realized With Cost-Effective Cots In Space, Pratish Shah, Anthony Lai

Small Satellite Conference

Space is one of the harshest environments that electronics need to operate in and is also one of the hardest to sustain repeating success. These reasons underscore the importance of testing and validation of mission critical systems used in space. Success in a space system is defined by its continued reliability, autonomous operation, and unwavering communication within its limited uplink and downlink network bandwidth for the missions.

A growing challenge among satellite and payload builders, from privately-funded organizations to government entities, is to meet aggressive development-to-deployment schedules with a tight budget. The industry pushes for designs with increased computing performance …

Constellation Design Of Remote Sensing Small Satellite For Infrastructure Monitoring In India, Roshan Sah, Raunak Srivastava, Kaushik Das

Small Satellite Conference

A constellation of remote sensing small satellite system has been developed for infrastructure monitoring in India by using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Payload. The low earth orbit (LEO) constellation of the small satellites is designed in a way, which can cover the entire footprint of India. Since India lies a little above the equatorial region, the orbital parameters are adjusted in a way that inclination of 36 degrees and RAAN varies from 70-130 degrees at a height of 600 km has been considered. A total number of 4 orbital planes are designed in which each orbital plane consisting 3 small …

Model Based Systems Engineering For Cubesat Mission Reliability, Tatyana Rakalina, Michel Izygon, Lui Wang, Isabelle Conway, Silvana Radu, Naoki Ishihama, Martin Feather, Arthur Witulski, John Evans

Small Satellite Conference

Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is moving to the forefront of small spacecraft development. The benefits of SysML as a language for the elucidation of the system architecture for CubeSats is well understood and is implemented in standard model formats. Concurrently, the benefits of the evolving development of MBSE for assurance has been recognized and is emerging as Model Based Mission Assurance (MBMA), which promises the development of integral assurance stakeholder views into the model as well as the production of useful products from the model. In this regard, the assurance organizations of NASA, ESA, and JAXA are exploring jointly …

Mata-Cloud: A Cloud Detection And Dynamic Attitude Correction Evaluation Software, Vanessa Tan, Julie Ann Banatao, John Leur Labrador, Lia Cristina Mabaquiao, Floyd Ferrant Fortes, Marc Caesar Talampas

Small Satellite Conference

With the increasing demand for high-resolution images from earth observation satellites, there is a need to optimize the usability of the images being downloaded in the ground stations. Most captured satellite images are not usable for certain applications due to high cloud cover percentage. To address this problem, this research demonstrates a cloud detection and dynamic attitude correction evaluation software. This software explores two key experiments. First is evaluating different image processing and machine learning-based approaches to detect cloud cover. The cloud detection algorithms were evaluated based on their accuracy, latency, and memory consumption. The second is exploring dynamic attitude …