Digital Commons Network^™

Korucusat: A Student-Led Cubesat Mission Investigating Solar-Ionospheric Interactions And Promoting Stem Education, Tejash Gupta, Karthik Kuppuswamy, Zhaoheng Li, Eesa Abdulraouf, Cyrus Khabbaz

Small Satellite Conference

The Astronomy Society of Fulton Science Academy (ASFSA) is developing KorucuSAT, a 3U CubeSat designed to both inspire K–12 students through hands-on aerospace education and investigate how soft X-ray solar radiation impacts the Earth's F2 ionospheric layer. The satellite carries a Langmuir probe, three-axis magnetometer, and soft X-ray detector to correlate solar radiation with plasma parameters and geomagnetic activity, data critical to understanding disruptions in GNSS, HF communication, and radar systems. In parallel with its science goals, KorucuSAT is a platform for educational outreach, including classroom workshops, MIT Beaver Works curriculum integration, and a FlatSat-based Python coding challenge. The mission …

Lessons Learned In Establishing Student-Led Satellite Operations, Shirish Pandam, Avery Barriga, John Connolly, Helen Reed

Small Satellite Conference

AggieSat6 (AGS6) is a 6U CubeSat designed and developed by students at Texas A&M University through the University Nanosatellite Program (NS-10) cycle. Its mission demonstrates a space-based RF array for Space Domain Awareness and collects low-energy electron radiation data to improve existing models.

Students lead all in-flight operations, gaining hands-on experience in mission control experience. Key challenges include interface development, maintaining system knowledge, and mitigating the effects of frequent student turnover.

Application Of Lambert’S Problem To An Electromagnetic Docking Maneuver, Amber Diaz, Steve Stochaj

Small Satellite Conference

Poster presented during the 2025 SmallSat Conference.

Implementation Of The Neural Network Execution Framework In A More Advanced Space-Like Hardware And Software Configuration, Rafael Polanco-Segovia, Piyush M. Mehta, Scott A. Zemerick

Small Satellite Conference

This work presents our Neural Network Execution Framework (NNEF), which aims to provide a cross-platform and reusable framework to deploy and execute trained neural networks (NN) for deep learning (DL) aerospace applications. This framework will execute any neural network inference process, regardless of the original deep learning framework in which it was created, in several flight software frameworks, operating systems, and hardware configurations. Users and organizations can use this framework to create reusable deployment and execution solutions for deep learning, instead of implementing one-off solutions each time they need to develop a specific aerospace application. …

Efficient Adaptive Thruster Control Strategies For Nanosatellite Attitude Control, Tian Cilliers, Willem Herman Steyn, Hendrik Willem Jordaan

Small Satellite Conference

This work explores the use of online estimation techniques to enhance advanced thruster-only attitude control strategies. Classical fixed-gain feedback control and newer model predictive control (MPC) based approaches all suffer from reduced efficiency or performance when the system parameters deviate from their nominal values. By incorporating optimal estimation techniques, this can be avoided and deviations from nominal values can be leveraged for fault detection, isolation, and recovery (FDIR).

Specifically, this work investigates the use of extended Kalman filters (EKF) to estimate parameters such as thruster torque and disturbances in real time, using satellite attitude measurements and known control inputs. In …

Finch Eye: The Optical And Optomechanical Design Of A Grism-Based Swir Hyperspectral Imaging Payload For A 3u Cubesat, Iliya Shofman, Mario Ghio Neto, Theaswanth Ganesh, Kenya He, Aidan Armstrong, Ksenya Narkevich

Small Satellite Conference

Crop residue is an important metric used for agricultural land-use monitoring and climate science research. Estimating crop residue coverage is essential to sustainable agricultural practices. There already exist scientific hyperspectral satellites, such as PRISMA and EnMAP, that can be used for crop residue estimation; however, they are very expensive to build and cannot be monopolized by individual farms. This leaves a gap in satellite remote sensing solutions which can be deployed operationally and at the farm scale. We seek to fill this gap by developing a low-cost satellite solution for crop residue estimation. The University of Toronto Aerospace Team is …

Hermes: A Satellite Surrogate Communication Testbed For Ground-Station Validation Using Software Defined Radio And Openc3 Cosmos, Luiz Felipe Bromfman, Gustavo Gargioni, Zach Leffke, Jonathan Black

Small Satellite Conference

Poster presented during the 2025 SmallSat Conference.

An Inter-Satellite Link Experiment On Pearl-1a And Pearl-1b Cubesats, Yun-Ru Chen, Wei-Rong Huang, Chi-Kuang Chao, Jen-Ming Wu

Small Satellite Conference

PEARL (Propagation Experiment using kurz-Above-band radio in Low earth orbit) -1A and PEARL-1B are two 6U XL CubeSats integrated by National Central University (NCU) are designed to perform space-to-earth and inter-satellite radio propagation channel experiments over Taiwan for educational training and scientific research. Both CubSats have the same structures and configurations. Each CubeSat will carry three payloads, an Inter-Satellite Link (ISL) payload, a Compact Ionospheric Probe (CIP), and a Perovskite Solar Cell (PSC) payload. The ISL enables over-the-horizon radio communication experiments, utilizing the Ka-band for both inter-satellite communication and space-to-ground communications. The CIP is an all-in-one in-situ ion sensor developed …

Development Of 6u Cubesat Vertecs Utilizing The Birds Bus System, Yukihisa Otani, Jose Rodrigo Cordova-Alarcon, Victor Hugo Schulz, Ryo Hashimoto, Kei Sano, Takao Nakagawa

Small Satellite Conference

Poster presented during the 2025 SmallSat Conference.

Detumbling Analysis And Attitude Stabilization Of Spicesat: A Closed-Loop Control Verification Framework, Spencer Talish, Francesca Fusco

Small Satellite Conference

This study investigates the detumbling capabilities of SPICEsat following an initial angular disturbance imparted by the deployer. SPICEsat, which stands for Sloshing Platform for In Orbit Controller Experimentation, is a 6U CubeSat developed by Rutgers University to investigate the effects of fuel sloshing on spacecraft stability and control. Top level, this research’s objective is to confirm SPICEsat's ability to reduce angular momentum, thereby achieving a stabilized post-deployment attitude. This is referred to as detumbling, or the process of reducing a satellite’s rotational rates following deployment. The system-level focus centers on assessing the control authority of the Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) …

Development Of A Scalable Electrical And Mechanical Backplane For The Guaranisat-2 Cubesat Mission, Edgar Elias Ramirez Sosa

Small Satellite Conference

This paper presents the design, development, and validation of a custom backplane interface board for GuaraniSat-2, Paraguay's second nanosatellite. GuaraniSat-2 is a 3U CubeSat developed through a collaborative effort led by the Paraguayan Space Agency (AEP) and SpaceLab, with the active participation of stakeholders such as the Polytechnic and Engineering Faculties of the National University of Asunción (UNA), Catholic University of Asunción (UCA), the LIESE lab at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and Astradyne, an Italian startup spun off from the Polytechnic University of Bari (Politecnico di Bari). The backplane board functions as …

Satellite Navigation With Earth Islands For Scope-1, S. Anand Agrawal, Brandon A. Jones

Small Satellite Conference

Spacecraft optical navigation can deliver autonomous navigation onboard when Earth-based tracking is saturated, obstructed, or impractical. Optical navigation relies on the correspondences between detected and known or mapped features in imagery to extract position and/or velocity, and data-driven methods, which directly leverage collected data to learn, can improve detection performance. This paper presents an initial data-driven Earth-based detection system using islands as landmarks for the SpaceCraft for Optical- based Position Estimation-1 (SCOPE-1) 3U CubeSat, which will be paired on board with a physics-based estimation framework. The system consists of an island detector trained on Earth observation imagery of islands, an …

Physical Implementation Of Sprint (Space-Based Prioritized Real-Time Inter-Satellite Network Technology), Maleeha Altaf, Dalia Ammar Khodja, Ryan Adams, Sreejith Vidhyadharan Nair, Ronald Fevig

Small Satellite Conference

Poster presented during the 2025 SmallSat Conference.

Sailing To The Stars: Free-Flying Light Sails In Microgravity, Verena Padres, Dionna Parina, Parishee Bajaj, Shashank Chalamalasetty, Cameron Goddard, Gabriella Elcsics-Gonzáles, Joshua Umansky-Castro, Claire Kim, Ethan Francolla, Mason Peck, Andrew Filo, Alex Burke

Small Satellite Conference

Sailing to the Stars is a mission led by students at Cornell University that will use the International Space Station (ISS) to gather data related to the deployment of free-flying light sails in microgravity. As this light sail architecture is relatively new, additional information on how the sail deploys and the optimal deployment system is desired. This information is relevant for guiding the design of future missions that use this technology. For this experiment, astronauts shall deploy six light sails from two different CubeSat-scale deployer designs within the ISS. Video footage and IMU data will be recorded throughout the experiment, …

Testing, Verification, And Qualification Of A Self-Developed Pcdu For The Student-Built Cubesat Source, Jan Freyhardt, Silas Neumann, Kevin Waizenegger, Daniel Galla, Sabine Klinkner

Small Satellite Conference

Poster presented during the 2025 SmallSat Conference.

Toward Trusted Onboard Ai: Advancing Small Satellite Operations Using Reinforcement Learning, Cannon Whitney, Joseph Melville

Small Satellite Conference

A Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithm was developed for command automation onboard a 3U CubeSat. This effort focused on the implementation of macro Control Action Reinforcement Learning (CARL), a technique in which an onboard agent is provided with compiled information based on live telemetry as its observation. The agent uses this information to produce high-level actions, such as adjusting attitude to solar pointing, which are then translated into control algorithms and executed through lower-level instructions. Once trust in the onboard agent is established, real-time environmental information can be leveraged for faster response times and reduced reliance on ground control. The approach …

Twistr: A Scalable, Low-Cost Microsatellite Rotation Device For Spacecraft Assembly Integration And Testing, Alex Leaf, Suraj Sridharan, Simon Grocott, Robert E. Zee

Small Satellite Conference

Increased industry demand for microsatellite missions calls for aggressive project timelines without sacrificing intricate development practices. Delivering missions at a faster pace relies strongly on both assembly processes, and ground support equipment, used through mission development cycles. Procedural challenges often arise in positioning larger spacecraft within the laboratory environment for various testing campaigns. Deployable mechanism, vibration, thermal vacuum, and electromagnetic compatibility testing often require spacecraft to be held under multiple orientations. Dual-axis rotation devices offer a means to position spacecraft in any orientation, proving a versatile spacecraft assembly, integration, and testing platform.

The development of a low-cost dual-axis rotation device …

A High-Sensitivity, Low-Power Magneto-Inductive Magnetometer For Space-Based Magnetic Field Measurements And Noise Mitigation, Rowan Antonuccio, Kade Howes, Josh Taylor, Charles Swenson

Small Satellite Conference

This paper presents a discrete-component, magneto-inductive (MI) magnetometer designed for CubeSat-class spacecraft. The sensor operates using an RL relaxation oscillator with FPGA-based pulse counting, achieving picotesla-scale resolution at 1 Hz with 25 mW power consumption. To minimize electromagnetic interference and maintain orthogonality, the sensing coils are housed in a rigid, boom-mounted enclosure constructed from non-magnetic materials. This architecture enhances measurement fidelity and supports in-orbit reconfiguration, offering a low-power research platform suitable for high-resolution magnetic field sensing.

Development Of A Compact Optical Communications Terminal For The Pulse-A Cubesat, Sofia Mansilla, Seth Knights, Natalie Orrantia, Maya Mcdaniel, Daniel Lee, Oliver Shoemaker, Aidan Etterer, Aishani Mohan, Chris Wong, Juan Ignacio Prieto Asbun, Robert Pitu, Logan Hanssler, Annie Shuford, Eliana Schiller, Kira Chin, Graydon Schulze-Kalt, Danielle Zumi Riekse, Mira Singh, Alexandra Yao, Vicky Bardon Soto, Natalie Sauer, Vidya Suri, Tian Zhong

Small Satellite Conference

The Polarization-modUlated Laser Satellite Experiment (PULSE-A) at the University of Chicago aims to demonstrate the feasibility of circular polarization shift keyed (CPolSK) satellite-to-ground laser communication links. The project aims to advance high-speed optical satellite-to-ground communications as an alternative to the traditionally used radio frequencies. PULSE-A thus requires the development of a compact, low-loss optical communications terminal capable of emitting collimated and high-power circularly polarized light modulated at high frequencies. Here we present a design for an optical communications terminal capable of achieving output powers of up to 230 mW at modulation frequencies from 1 to 10 MHz with a maximum …

Automated Pointing Budget And Reaction Wheel Sizing Tool For Cubesat Attitude Control With Iterative Sensitivity Analysis, Logan Thompson, Matthew Devor, Michael Harrigan, Victoria Coverstone

Small Satellite Conference

Reaction wheels are a widely used solution for CubeSat attitude control, offering precise pointing capabilities without the need for a propulsion system. However, sizing reaction wheels correctly is a persistent challenge due to the difficulty of accurately defining the pointing budget, which determines the required torque and momentum storage capacity. Designers must account for mission-specific constraints, spacecraft mass properties, and environmental disturbances, all of which introduce uncertainty into the sizing process. As a result, reaction wheels are often either oversized, leading to unnecessary mass and power consumption, or undersized, risking performance failures such as saturation. To address this challenge, a …

Conceptual Design Of A Low Orbit Dust Detector Powder, Matheus De Carvalho Abelha, Felipe Oliveira Tavares, Marco Antonio Ridenti, Luís Eduardo Vergueiro Loures Da Costa

Small Satellite Conference

The Pulse Observation OWing to Dust impact ExpeRiment (POWDER) instrument is a conceptual lunar orbital dust detector designed to measure and analyze dust impacts at a lunar polar orbit. POWDER operates by detecting electric charges generated during dust collisions on a designated collector surface. This study is focused on analyzing the design feasibility for a collecting surface plate, in terms of generated voltage signal from dust impact in comparison to the base ambient noise level. The low amplitude of the voltage signal presents significant challenges, as measuring such a faint signal requires …

Contentcube: 1u Cubesat Mission Testing External Display Screens In Orbit, G. Plourde, J. Effenberger, M. Esser, N. Hernandez

Small Satellite Conference

Poster presented during the 2025 SmallSat Conference.

Developing A Full System Thermal Analysis Of A Cubesat To Design A Low-Cost Battery Heater System, Owen Nesbit, Sydney Whilden, Deepak R. Mishra

Small Satellite Conference

The Mission for Education and Multimedia Engagement Satellite (MEMESat-1) is a low-budget 2U CubeSat under development by the University of Georgia Small Satellite Research Laboratory. Once launched into LEO, the CubeSat will serve as an FM repeater for the Ham Radio community and will uplink and downlink donor-submitted images.

To verify that all MemeSAT-1 electrical components remain within their operational temperature limits throughout its lifetime, a system-level thermal analysis is performed using C&R Technology’s Thermal Desktop. This software allows for the satellite to be subjected to LEO temperatures and solar radiation, accurately simulating the amount …

Custom Test Point Insertion For Improved Rom Test Coverage, Krunal Siddhapathak, Ankit Garg

Defensive Publications Series

Read-only memories (ROM) incorporate a scan chain to assist in detecting manufacturing defects. This scan chain can share a single flip-flop across multiple ROM outputs. However, sharing of scan flip-flops across ROM outputs can create a controllability issue for the ROM fan-out logic. Testing ROM fan-out becomes challenging, as a single control element drives four outputs, each with potentially different requirements for fault excitation and detection. This disclosure describes techniques that insert custom test points to improve the controllability and observability of the fan-out and fan-in logic cones of read-only memories (ROMs). By placing test points at the ROM outputs, …

In Memoriam: Perry Yaney, Professor Emeritus Of Physics, Dave Larsen

College of Arts and Sciences Newsroom

Respected for "his dedication for and impact on optics research and education, and scientific outreach," Perry Yaney continued to advise and mentor graduate students after his retirement in 2004.

Between Shelter & Ash: A Design Policy Atlas For Wildfire-Resiliency, Daisy Elizabeth Morales-Zaragoza

McNair Summer Research Program

Architectural design holds a powerful potential in the face of wildfire threats, yet remains underutilized in fire resilience strategies. This study will explore how design, at the level of the house, street, and community, can move beyond code compliance toward holistic protection. Through analysis of principal fire codes such as IWUIC, CBC Chapter 7A, and NFPA 1144, visual diagrams, precedent case studies, and original architecture proposals, the paper proposes a multiscale design framework that expands our understanding of resilience. It argues that while fire codes establish critical baselines, spatial planning, form, and materials must work in concert with social and …

China’S Reform On Gradual Delay Of The Retirement Age, Zhenxing Ke

Dispatches

APPROXIMATELY A DECADE AGO, China began considering postponing the retirement age, and this concept has now been officially implemented. On 13 September 2024, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress passed the “Decision on the Implementation of Gradual Delay of the Retirement Age, 关于实施渐进式延迟法定退休年龄的决定,” (the “Decision on Retirement Age”). Concurrently, the State Council issued the “Measures to Gradually Delay of Statutory Retirement Age,” 关于渐进式延迟法定退休年龄 的办法, (the “Measures on Retirement Age”) providing detailed provisions. This marks the first instance of China raising its retirement age in several decades. Prior to this reform, the retirement age in China was 50 years …

Land8fire: A Complete Study On Wildfire Segmentation Through Comprehensive Review, Human-Annotated Multispectral Dataset, And Extensive Benchmarking, Anh Tran, Minh Tran, Esteban Marti, Jackson Cothren, Chase Rainwater, Sandra Eksioglu, Ngan Le

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Early and accurate wildfire detection is critical for minimizing environmental damage and ensuring a timely response. However, existing satellite-based wildfire datasets suffer from limitations such as coarse ground truth, poor spectral coverage, and class imbalance, which hinder progress in developing robust segmentation models. In this paper, we introduce Land8Fire, a new large-scale wildfire segmentation dataset composed of over 20,000 multispectral image patches derived from Landsat 8 and manually annotated for high-quality fire masks. Building on the ActiveFire dataset, Land8Fire improves ground truth reliability and offers predefined splits for consistent benchmarking. We evaluate a range of state-of-the-art convolutional and transformer-based models, …

Optimization Of Rabbit Urine Liquid Organic Fertilizer And Reduced Npk Fertilizer Doses For Improving Growth And Physiology Of Shallot (Allium Ascalonicum L.), Etik Wukir Tini, Rifqi Raditya Kurniawan

Jurnal Kultivasi

Rabbit urine liquid organic fertilizer (LOF) can be used as an alternative fertilizer to reduce the use of inorganic fertilizers, especially for shallots, as a national food commodity. This study aims to determine the best concentration of rabbit urine LOF, the best dose of NPK fertilizer dose reduction, and a combination of rabbit urine LOF and NPK fertilizer dose reduction on the physiological characters of shallot plants. The observed variables consisted of net assimilation rate, crop growth rate, stomatal density, stomatal aperture, and chlorophyll content. The experimental results showed that a concentration of 200 mL L-1 of rabbit urine LOF …

Chemically Mediated Communication In Mound-Building Termites, Sree Subha Ramaswamy

Theses and Dissertations

Nest-building in social insects requires layered communication to coordinate complex, functional structures for housing, protection, storage, and homeostasis. This is especially striking in mound-building termites, which construct and repair large mounds collectively despite lacking image-forming eyes. This thesis investigates how Odontotermes obesus achieves such coordination through chemical communication embedded in soil.

Using controlled two-choice assays with manipulated soils, I separated airborne volatile signals from contact non-volatile signals by baking to remove volatiles, a mesh assay that presented volatile cues without contact, and solvent extraction with reapplication of contact cues. I quantified responses in major-only, minor-only, and mixed groups at two …