Engineering Commons^™

A Report On Small Spacecraft Development Work At The University Of North Dakota, Jeremy Straub, Christoffer Korvald

Jeremy Straub

An update on current activities related to small spacecraft development at the University of North Dakota is presented. These activities include mission design (a NEA rendezvous mission), spacecraft design efforts (the Open Prototype for Educational NanoSats) and two active design and development efforts (DakotaAlpha and OpenOrbiter). This presentation covers the ongoing activities at UND and the educational and technical value that has been produced. In particular, it focuses on the OpenOrbiter program from an educational perspective. Through OpenOrbiter, students from a multitude of STEM (computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, etc.) and non-STEM (education, business, public policy, fine arts, etc.) …

An Expert System For Spacecraft Design, Jeremy Straub, Christoffer Korvald, Tyler Hill, Joshua Berk

Jeremy Straub

Designing a spacecraft is a complicated process that can be problem-prone. This is particularly true in the case of a small spacecraft where volume and mass limitations are enforced by form factor requirements. The Open Prototype for Educational NanoSats implements several restrictions beyond those from the CubeSat form factor, including two different board size specifications which impact the configuration of the payload area support structure and the size of available batteries.

OpenEdge aims to avoid the discovery of form factor, OPEN-specific and other configuration issues during final assembly by checking prospective configurations against the applicable requirements and constraints set during …

The Development Of Payload Software For A Small Spacecraft, Kyle Goehner, Christoffer Korvald, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Marsh

Jeremy Straub

The OpenOrbiter project is a multi-department effort to design and build a small spacecraft which will demonstrate the feasibility of the Open Prototype for Educational NanoSats (OPEN) framework. This framework will reduce cost of small spacecraft creation by providing design plans for free. The focus of the payload software group is to design and implement an onboard task processing and image processing service. Currently the project is in the development phase and most large design decisions have been made. This poster presents the major design decisions that have been made for the payload software and how they will affect the …

Sensor And Computing Resource Management For A Small Satellite, Abhilasha Bhatia, Kyle Goehner, John Sand, Jeremy Straub, Atif Mohammad, Christoffer Korvald

Jeremy Straub

A small satellite in a low-Earth orbit (e.g., approximately a 300 to 400 km altitude) has an orbital velocity in the range of 8.5 km/s and completes an orbit approximately every 90 minutes. For a satellite with minimal attitude control, this presents a significant challenge in obtaining multiple images of a target region. Presuming an inclination in the range of 50 to 65 degrees, a limited number of opportunities to image a given target or communicate with a given ground station are available, over the course of a 24-hour period. For imaging needs (where solar illumination is required), the number …

Exposing Multiple User-Specific Data Denominated Products From A Single Small Satellite Data Stream, Atif F. Mohammad,, Emanuel Grant, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Marsh, Scott Kerlin

Jeremy Straub

This paper presents a research work on small satellite data stream and related distribution to associated stakeholders, which is a field that needs to get explored in more detail. The algorithm that is presented to extract USDDP (User-Specific Data Denominated Products) is a self managing body, which will be within as Open Space Box environment or OSBE as a novel idea. It contains an individual stream transmitted by the small satellite, which later is to be converted into USDDP. The context defined here deals with area in detail. Contexts are vitally important because they control, influence and affect everything within …

Model-Based Software Engineering For An Imaging Cubesat And Its Extrapolation To Other Missions, Atif Mohammad, Jeremy Straub, Christoffer Korvald, Emanuel Grant

Jeremy Straub

Small satellites with their limited computational capabilities require that software engineering techniques promote efficient use of spacecraft resources. A model-driven approach to software engineering is an excellent solution to this resource maximization challenge as it facilitates visualization of the key solution processes and data elements.

The software engineering process utilized for the OpenOrbiter spacecraft, which is a remote sensing technology demonstrator, is presented. Key challenges presented by the Open Orbiter project included concurrent operation and tasking of five computer-on-module (COM) units and a flight computer and the associated data marshaling between local and general storage. The payload processing system (consisting …

Small Satellites With Micro-Propulsion For Communications With The Lunar South Pole Aitkens Basin, Samudra E. Haque, Jeremy Straub, David Whalen

Jeremy Straub

A lunar sample return mission to the Lunar South-Pole Aitkens Basin (LSPAB) has been highlighted as a high priority objective of the most recent (2011) Decadal Survey for Planetary Science, by the National Research Council. This class of mission, however, faces a dramatic communications limitation, due to the lack of a frequent, or continuous, line-of-sight communications path to Earthbased ground stations. Brunner and others have proposed a communications system utilizing Low Lunar Polar Orbits (LLPO) and Lunar Halo orbits for this purpose. Ely and others have outlined proposals for using several communication satellites to form a relay network using LLPO, …

Orbit-To-Ground Wireless Power Transfer Test Mission, Corey Bergsrud, Sima Noghanian, Jeremy Straub, David Whalen, Ronald Fevig

Jeremy Straub

Since the 1970s the concept of transferring power from orbit for use on Earth has had a great deal of consideration for future energy and environmental sustainability here on Earth. The cost, size and complexity of a production-grade system are extremely large, and have many environmental considerations. There has never been a publicly disclosed orbit-to-ground power transfer test mission. A proposed project provides an opportunity to test the conceptual operation of such a system, albeit at a much lower power level than the ‘grand’ or ‘real scale’ system. During this test, a small Solar Powered (SP) 6-U CubSat will be …

The Open Prototype For Educational Nanosats: Fixing The Other Side Of The Small Satellite Cost Equation, Josh Berk, Jeremy Straub, David Whalen

Jeremy Straub

Government supported nano-satellite launch programs and emerging commercial small satellite launch services are reducing the cost of access to space for educational and other CubeSat projects. The cost and complexity of designing and building these satellites remains a vexing complication for many would be CubeSat aspirants. The Open Prototype for Educational NanoSats (OPEN), a proposed nano-satellite development platform, is described in this paper. OPEN endeavors to reduce the costs and risks associated with educational, government and commercial nano-satellite development. OPEN provides free and publicly available plans for building, testing and operating a versatile, low-cost satellite, based on the standardized CubeSat …

Open Space Box Model: Service Oriented Architecture Framework For Small Spacecraft Collaboration And Control, Atif F. Mohammad, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

A Cubesat is a small satellite with very less competence to compute, it requires software engineering techniques, which can enhance the computational power for this small box. A model-driven approach of software engineering, which is called OSBM or Open Space Box Modeling technique, is an excellent solution to this re-source maximization challenge. OSBM facilitates apparition of the key solution pro-cesses computation and satellite related data elements using Service Oriented Ar-chitecture 3.0 (SOA 3.0) as base to work on to design services. The key challenges that can be handled by utilizing OSBM include concurrent operation and tasking of few as five …

An Open Prototype For Educational Nanosats: Increasing National Space Engineering Productivity Via A Low-Cost Platform, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

The Open Prototype for Educational NanoSats (OPEN) is poised to allow a dramatic increase in the number of students, worldwide, that have the opportunity to participate in hands-on spacecraft development. It is designed to facilitate the formation of CubeSat development programs via providing a publically-available set of spacecraft design documents, implementation and testing plans. These documents should allow the creation of a 1-U CubeSat with a parts budget of approximately $ 5,000. This allows spacecraft development to be incorporated in regular curriculum and supported from teaching (as opposed to research) funds.

The Openorbiter Program: Intrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship And Innovation, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

The University of North Dakota’s OpenOrbiter program is providing an interdisciplinary learning experience for students from numerous STEM and non-STEM fields. OpenOrbiter allows student participants to experience not just the engineering and other technical aspects of the space program, it also involves students from diverse, non-STEM fields (including communications, entrepreneurship, management, visual arts, public policy and English). Traditional STEM fields such as mathematics, physics, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science and technology are also well represented. Students from specially programs at the University of North Dakota including atmospheric sciences, Earth System Sciences and Policy, aviation, Space Studies and Air Traffic …

The International Trafficking In Arms Regulations: Precluding Innovation In Academic Spacecraft Engineering — Or Are They?, Jeremy Straub, Joe Vacek

Jeremy Straub

Government regulations and uncertainty about their enforcement can be a significant barrier to innovation. In business, it is undesirable to consume time and other resources developing a product that cannot be sold or which requires navigating significant bureaucracy for each sale. In academ-ia, where limited funding is available prior to the submission of a grant pro-posal and receipt of an award, proposal-stage compliance costs can derail a project long before it begins. This paper reviews the International Traffick-ing in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and their impact on spacecraft research in academia, private research labs and industry. It reviews the exemptions available, …

Risk Analysis & Management In Student-Centered Spacecraft Development Projects, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Fevig, James Casler, Om Yadav

Jeremy Straub

Student involvement in any engineering project introduces an element of risk. This risk is particularly pronounced with small spacecraft projects, as a failure of the spacecraft on-orbit can result in a complete failure of the mission. However, student involvement in these projects is critical to allow research aims to be accomplished, in a university setting, and to train the next generation of spacecraft engineering professionals. The nature of risks posed by student involvement is discussed and a framework for assessing and mitigating these risks presented.