Aerospace Engineering Commons^™

Flight System Development For A Bio-Inspired Rotating Empennage Experimental Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Ashton Gilbert

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Unmanned aerial systems, commonly known as drones, are increasingly used for research, environmental monitoring, and testing new aircraft concepts. Many commercially available drone flight controllers work well for standard aircraft designs, but they can be difficult to adapt for experimental vehicles that use unconventional control methods or require detailed monitoring during testing. This creates challenges for researchers who need flexible and reliable tools to safely evaluate new flight technologies. This work presents the development of a custom drone flight control system designed specifically for experimental research. The system integrates custom electronics and software that allow researchers to easily modify control …

In-Orbit Demonstration Of The Vyom-2u: A Green Monopropellant-Based Propulsion System Onboard Isro's Pslv C60 Poem-4, Ashtesh Kumar, Tushar Jadav, Prashant Singh, Rajat Kumar, Sajo George, Sivakami S., Rohit Shanbhag, Neel Gharat, Shubham Singh, Henry Sam, Suman Vadla

Small Satellite Conference

Vyom 2U is a compact 2U green monopropellant propulsion system designed to deliver a total impulse of 1700 Ns. At Beginning-of-Life (BOL) conditions, corresponding to a tank pressure of 24 bar, the thruster can deliver up to 1.1 N with a specific impulse of approximately 250 s, while requiring a peak electrical power of 15 W. At an operating pressure of 14 bar, the propulsion system delivers a thrust of approximately 0.67 N with a specific impulse of about 238 s. This operating point was deliberately selected for in-orbit operations to maintain sub-newton thrust levels compatible with the attitude control …

Enabling Earth Independent Navigation, Guidance And Control With The Autongc Flight Software Framework, Michael Romeo, Sun Hur-Diaz, Behnam Azimi, Sean Semper, Robert Pritchett, James Marshall, Liam Greenlee, Joseph Patton, Steven Slegel, Carl De Vries, Benjamin Leser, Andrew Liounis

Small Satellite Conference

autoNGC is a framework for enabling onboard autonomous Navigation, Guidance and Control. Encompassing flight software, ground system software, reference hardware platforms, and simulation/analysis tools, autoNGC is designed to be an end-to-end solution to enabling onboard navigation, guidance and control with minimal ground operator supervision.

Implemented as a suite of apps for NASA’s core Flight System (cFS), autoNGC is designed with a modular architecture, allowing it to be customized to meet the needs of nearly any mission. This modular architecture enables a high-degree of reusability, allowing autoNGC to be rapidly implemented on new missions.

autoNGC is built on Goddard-developed software products, …

From Estimation To Certainty: Enhancing Smallsat Constellation Replenishment Planning With Physics-Based Solar Forecasting, Scott W. Mcintosh, Katherine Monson, Carolyn Belle, Chris Habib, Brianna Aubin

Small Satellite Conference

Poster Presented at the 2026 Small Satellite Conference

First Generation Of Project A.S.P.I.R.E. – A 1u Cubesat Mission For Technology Demonstration And Student Involvement In New Zealand, Shuanghui Zhao, Shunxing Shi, Kristen Lian, Rose Peens-Hough, Arami Peens-Hough, Changrui Wang, Joowon Hwang, Jerry Sun, Edward Sun

Small Satellite Conference

MOTIVATION

A feasibility study conducted at an Auckland secondary school in December 2024 found strong interest in satellite-related learning. Following an outreach presentation, 63 students (Majority aged 15 - 18) completed a questionnaire, with an average interest rating of 4.86/5. The most popular subjects were Orbital Physics, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering (fig. 1).

Hitechsat-1: A Rapidly Integrable 3u Platform For University Cubesat Missions, Seho Kim, Miguel Nunes, Mohammed Irfan Rashed, Lance Yoneshige, Gabriel Guerrero, Scott Ginoza, Piper Kline, Luke Flynn

Small Satellite Conference

HITechSat (HTS) is a student-led CubeSat program at the Hawaiʻi Space Flight Laboratory, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. HTS-1 is the first mission in the series: a 3U CubeSat deploying from the International Space Station (ISS) in mid 2027.

Investigation Of A Demonstration Mission For Three-Dimensional Remote Sensing Using “Structured Radio Waves” With Orbital Angular Momentum, Hisatoshi Kimura, Tsukasa Funane, Yosuke Tanabe, Miki Yonehara, Makoto Ito, Keigo Nakamura, Yasuyuki Miyazaki, Satoshi Ikari, Shinichi Nakasuka, Koichi Watanabe

Small Satellite Conference

Background

• As a new radar technology for remote sensing, three-dimensional observation methods using electromagnetic waves with spatial phase distributions are being studied to obtain azimuth-angle information in addition to conventional radar measurements^[1].
• We are considering the use of “structured radio waves”, which are formed by superposing two radio waves carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM), as radio waves with spatial phase distributions^[2,3].

Purpose

• Evaluate the effects of satellite position and attitude errors on azimuth-angle estimation and clarify the requirements for a demonstration mission. 
• Assess the feasibility and provide recommendations.

Layer 3 Switching, Todd R. Zatorski

Small Satellite Conference

Poster presented at the 2026 Small Satellite Conference

Comparison Between Low-Powered Gridded Ion Thruster And Hall Effect Thruster Operation For Small Satellite Applications, William Brabston, Kuei-Ru Chien, Michael Jaroonwit, Kevin Berg

Small Satellite Conference

In recent years, the small satellite space economy has experienced unprecedented growth with the emergence of low-cost dedicated and rideshare launch services. The resulting proliferation of small satellites creates a high demand for low cost, efficient electric propulsion systems to perform orbital maneuvers. Hall effect thrusters (HET) and gridded ion thrusters (GIT) are the two primary electric propulsion platforms for small sat applications, and they offer distinct advantages and disadvantages. Stellant, formerly Hughes, Boeing, and L3 Harris, is developing a lowpower GIT to meet these mission needs.

HETs produce thrust primarily through a highly coupled ionization and acceleration process, whereas …

Launch Vehicle And Ground Infrastructure Development For Zero Launch Systems, Masahiro Kinoshita

Small Satellite Conference

ZERO is a two-stage, orbital-class launch vehicle designed to provide flexible, affordable, and localized space access.

Microsat For Refueling Mission Demonstrator In Vleo, Gyusun Kim

Small Satellite Conference

Recently, active research and technological development have been conducted on various mission application in VLEO(Very Low Earth Orbit) using MicroSat. However, the limited payload accommodation capability of MicroSat poses significant challenges for high optical resolution commercial or national-level practical missions. In contrast, satellites of 2,000 kg in size have performed well in low-Earth orbit for the very high optical resolution missions required so far (e.g., 30 cm-level resolution optical satellites) in 450 km ~ 600 km orbit altitude, but in order to meet the continuously increasing resolution requirements in the future optical imagery market (e.g., 15 cm-level resolution), the optical …

Mission Orientated Flight Software Development: Cubestep, Tirth Thakkar, Howard Lee, Viren Kumar, Maranda Laws, Shridhi Seth, Marco Maggia, Navid Nakhjiri

Small Satellite Conference

Small satellite teams often develop flight software and mission operations separately, leading to software behaviors that drift out of sync with ground procedures. To fix this, we present a co-design approach that directly links mission goals and operational procedures to the onboard flight software architecture. Demonstrated on the CubeSTEP-Cerberus mission using NASA’s F′ framework and FreeRTOS, our system maps mission intent into five constrained software states (Initialization, Safe, Idle, Experiment, and Transmit) guarded by automated health checks. This co-design strategy ensures the spacecraft acts autonomously to preserve its goals while strictly maintaining operator control over critical decisions.

Multi-Paradigm Contact Scheduling — Combining Automation And Flexibility In Gsaas Operations, Jake Urbanek, Giovanni Zanotti, Stefan Vlad Tudor, Giovanni Pandolfi Bortoletto

Small Satellite Conference

BACKGROUND

Ground segment operations must keep pace with increasingly demanding mission concepts of operation. For a GroundSegment-as-a-Service (GSaaS) provider, this means scheduling ground contacts against a diverse, often conflicting set of customer requirements, historically requiring bespoke scheduling logic. Leaf Line's baseline addresses this with two mechanisms: an automated Scheduler that computes guaranteed network-wide allocations 4 days ahead, and on-demand booking of unallocated capacity, first-come-first-served.

PROBLEM

Together, the baseline delivers strong service levels and network utilization, but two gaps emerged. The 4-day rolling horizon limits visibility into exact pass allocation beyond that window. And users needing specific pass times may find …

Feasibility Study Of A 3d-Printed Thermally Insulated Battery Compartment For Cubesats, Michal Kolodynski, Konrad Kij, Michal Radawiec

Small Satellite Conference

Poster presented at the 2026 Small Satellite Conference

Semi-Autonomous Reconnaissance Satellite: A Laboratory Demonstration Of End-To-End On-Board Mission Autonomy, Eran Shtoyerman, Raphael Cohen, Rafi Cohen, Oshri Fatkiev, Guy Zaidman, Gal Pinchas, Doron Shterman

Small Satellite Conference

Real-time satellite responsiveness to user requests from the field remains largely unavailable in current space systems. Such capabilities are typically restricted to low-altitude airborne platforms, primarily due to limited satellite communication bandwidth, intermittent ground contact, and the reliance on ground-based mission planning. Enabling true responsiveness requires a paradigm shift toward highly autonomous satellites, in which target selection, task execution, and mission planning are performed on board.

For example, a user may request a satellite to perform the following task in real-time: detect a ceiling tanker ship in a specified area, estimate its velocity from video data, and autonomously track the …

Revisit Performance Analysis Of Narsha Microsatellite Constellation For Point-Source Ghg Monitoring, Jinyoung Shin, Geuk-Nam Kim, Taemin Kim, Jaemin Hong, Joohee Lee, Marcin Badowski, Seongwhan Lee

Small Satellite Conference

Although microsatellite missions under 100 kg have demonstrated advanced capabilities in detecting localized CO2 and CH4 emissions, the effectiveness of these systems hinges on their spatial and temporal coverage and observation validity under diverse environmental conditions.

Factors such as solar zenith angle (SZA), viewing zenith angle (VZA), surface albedo, weather, and source persistence influence their performance.

Against this background, this study evaluates the spatial and temporal coverage performance of microsatellite-based GHG observation systems through numerical simulations incorporating environmental and instrumental conditions.

Development Of The Optical Components For Leo Satellite Communication Equipment, Tomoaki Toriya, Masaki Ogura, Yoshiriho Kamihama, Tomoaki Kiriyama, Katsuhiro Iwasaki, Takashi Kato

Small Satellite Conference

We supply highly reliable optical components such as Optical Isolators, Circulators, and Filters used in optical submarine repeaters. The Faraday rotator, a key device in optical Isolators, is manufactured from crystals, which also enhances the reliability of our products.

Last year we reported that our standard optical isolator YD-460 withstands the LEO satellite environment (radiation exposure, thermal vacuum cycling) and showed no laser-induced degradation up to 4.8 W at 1.48 µm (Raman pump).

In this work, the laser durability was evaluated with a high-power 1.55 µm source (max. 10 W), the wavelength actually used in satellite optical communication. Optical Isolator …

A Comparative Analysis Of Sensing Methodologies During Rendezvous & Proximity Operations, Tyler Ritz, Ian Silverberg, Axel Garcia, Giovanni Lavezzi

Small Satellite Conference

The result: Actionable state estimates in seconds not hours

Fusing a small passive imager with a state-of-the-art ranging payload, such as Peregrine Space Corp’s CORVID 12U and 3U variants, collapses the time to a 10 m relative-navigation gate (1σ RSS uncertainty in 3-axes) by two to three orders of magnitude versus angles-only navigation. While ingested measurement types differ across scenarios, the CONOPS remains unchanged. Active ranging replaces hours of parallax inference with direct measurements.

From Model To Mission: A Model-Based Method For Managing Spacecraft Ai&T Activities, Andy Young, Dan Christensen

Small Satellite Conference

Assembly, Integration, and Test (AI&T) is one of the most complex phases of spacecraft development, requiring engineers to coordinate interconnected procedures, specialized equipment, personnel, and evolving schedules. Traditional AI&T planning relies on separate diagrams, schedules, spreadsheets, and documents that must be manually synchronized, increasing engineering effort and the risk of inconsistencies. Meanwhile, many Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) methodologies effectively end before design implementation. We present a methodology that addresses these challenges by extending MBSE practices to provide a single source of truth for AI&T information.

Spot: A Cubesat Mission For High-Resolution Monitorig Of Anthropogenic Sulfur Emissions, Carla Roesch, Colleen Golja, James Custer, Catherine Ember, Jerome Woodwark, Andrew Matheson, Joshua Vande Hey, Sonymol Vk, Steven Heer, Zixuan Gao, Tim Trent

Small Satellite Conference

Resolving individual industrial sources of SO₂ to constrain aerosol forcing — one of the largest remaining uncertainties in Earth's energy budget.

A Stackable Multi-Mppt Power Architecture With Paralleled Inputs For Scalable Cubesat Solar Energy Harvesting, Muhammed Syedali N., Anamika A. Kamath, Nithin Krishnan S. S., Ashfaque K. P., Sijo George, Arun P., Jr-Chiun Roger Tsai, Tensae Ali, Jesmin Jose, Athira B. S.

Small Satellite Conference

In traditional CubeSat configurations, the Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) circuit acts as a critical single point of failure because all harvested solar energy is funneled through a single, non-redundant conversion stage. Consequently, the failure of this individual component completely blocks power delivery to the system, permanently stranding otherwise healthy solar arrays and batteries and causing catastrophic mission termination.

This work introduces a modular, stackable solar energy architecture that distributes power conditioning across multiple identical, autonomous modules connected to shared PV and battery buses. By relying purely on analog input-voltage regulation at a common operating point, it eliminates radiation-vulnerable digital …

Advancements In The Ma61c-Smallsat Hardware Board: Elevating Modular Adcs From Trl 5 To Trl 6, Saish Sridharan

Small Satellite Conference

LESSONS LEARNT AND DESIGN JUSTIFICATION

Output from previous phase

• RS422/RS485 Tranceiver: The LCT2865-based interface failed testing and should be redesigned for the next phase.
• Shielded Cabling: Properly grounded shielded cables eliminated JTAG communication instability.

Capstone Demonstration Of Real-Time Autonomous Navigation Using One-Way Radiometric Measurements, Benjamin Leser, Sun Hur-Diaz, Anne Long, Carl De Vries, Nathan Esantsi, Liam Greenlee, Michael Romeo, Nathan Stacey

Small Satellite Conference

autoNGC performed the first ever onboard, real-time spacecraft navigation using one-way forward direct-with-Earth (DWE) radiometric measurements at the Moon

Comparative Analysis Of Reaction Wheels And Control Moment Gyroscopes For High-Capacity Orbital Data Centers In Sun-Pointing Mission Profiles, Chih Ta Wu, Po Hsun Yen, Jen Hao Cheng, Kai Kuo Liao, Shang Jung Lee

Small Satellite Conference

• Orbital data centers (ODCs) are moving from concept to near-term engineering: Starcloud (5 GW), Meta / Overview Energy (1 GW SSP), SpaceX (up to 1M-satellite FCC filing).
• Multi-kW to GW-class compute demands solar arrays of unprecedented scale → extreme inertia and disturbance torques.
• Can Reaction Wheels (RWs) vs Control Moment Gyroscopes (CMGs) hold an ODC in a sun-nadir pointing profile?

Autongc Flight Opnav Experiment Results On Capstone, Andrew J. Liounis, Sun Hur-Diaz, Behnam Azimi, Nichalas L. Cason, Chris R. Gnam, Grant Hecht, Steven Z. Queen, Michael J. Romeo, Sean R. Semper, Nathan Stacey, Andrew Tennenbaum, Daniel G. Berdugo, Carl J. De Vries, Benjamin Leser, Anne Long, Liam A. Greenlee, Joseph W. Patton, Steven B. Slegel, Isaac R. Witte

Small Satellite Conference

Summary: We successfully demonstrated on-board automated optical navigation (OpNav) in a lunar near rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) using images of the Moon, the Earth, and other solar system bodies, advancing the technology readiness level (TRL) of the autonomous guidance navigation and control (autoNGC) OpNav capabilities from 5 to 7.

Development Of Spacecraft Digital Twins For Flight Software Maintenance, Robert Klar

Small Satellite Conference

This research project developed a digital twin—a virtual representation of a physical spacecraft, including its components, interfaces, and communications. By leveraging the digital twin’s ability to be replicated, modified, and distributed efficiently, the project enhances capabilities in design, analysis, and optimization. It significantly reduces risk, cost, and development schedules for flight software by minimizing dependencies on hardware resources. The project was executed as a collaborative effort between the Intelligent Systems Division (10) and Space Systems Division (05).

Experimental Leo Cubesat Mission With Pnt And Communication Payloads, Chung-Sheng Lin, Chi-Kuang Chao, Yu-Xiang Lin

Small Satellite Conference

Background: The deployment of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) mega-constellations (e.g., Starlink, OneWeb, Pulsar, IRIS) has driven interest in LEO-based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) solutions [1], either through dedicated payloads or signals-of-opportunity.

Objectives: This work proposes a CubeSat mission aimed at verifying integrated LEO communication and positioning capabilities over Taiwan.

Methodology & Mission Plan:

- Constellation: One to four CubeSats will be deployed. Real-time positioning will be tested during simultaneous four-satellite visibility over Taiwan, while recorded-signal positioning will be used for partial constellations.

- Experiments: Dual-mode testing includes concurrent communication and positioning experiments, alongside communication-signal-based …

Nexus-1 - A Multi-Mission Maneuverable Spacecraft For Dynamic Space Operations, Kieran Wilson, Gavin Petit, Ghonhee Lee, Andrew Sabovik

Small Satellite Conference

Sustained Space Maneuver enabled by dual-use multipurpose servicers

• Rideshare compatible (ESPA-Grande Class)
• Energy-dense propulsion for flexible mission profiles (LEO-GEO-XGEO)
• On-demand services for unprepared space vehicles
• Inspect, Refuel, Upgrade, Reposition, Life-Extension, Deorbit
• Modular capabilities and deployables
• Common carriage enabled by government reference architecture
• Fuel & Interface-agnostic modular refueling

Optical Advantages In Using Extremely Stable Materials In Small Satellite Telescopes, Tony Hull, Jesse Bonfeld, Dustin Ruth, Florian Gollier, Janina Krieg, Thomas Westerhoff, Jacqueline Caraballo

Small Satellite Conference

Small-satellite telescopes experience continuous thermal transients from changing Sun and Earth view factors plus CONOPS → temperature gradients T(xi) → distort mirrors/metering if the material is sensitive to temperature.

Transients are partially mitigated by diffusivity, but only with uniform temperature changes. Orbital and CONOPS transients are not uniform → The architect must examine the material response to realistic transients and gradients.

Optimal optical performance is supported by appropriate passive material attributes!

Resilient Positioning And Resident Space Object Identification Using Miniaturized Star Tracker Hardware, Justin Kruger, Aviad Golan, Simone D’Amico

Small Satellite Conference

Robust alternative positioning, navigation, and timing (APNT) is a critical enabling capability in orbits where GNSS availability is degraded or denied.

Timely, accurate space situational awareness (SSA) knowledge is necessary for autonomy and safety in dynamic space environments.