A very low cost ground system for a micro-satellite mission

The NITESat (Night Imaging and Tracking Experiment Satellite) mission is a 2U CubeSat satellite designed for nighttime Earth imaging to quantify and characterize light pollution across the Midwestern United States. It is accompanied and supported by an array of ground-based light pollution observing stations called GONet (Ground Observing Network). NITESat is a pilot mission testing the potential for a simple and inexpensive (<$500,000) satellite to deliver high-resolution, three-color regional data of artificial light at night. In addition, GONet will form the core of an educational outreach program by establishing an array of all-sky monitors covering the imaging region of the satellite with 20+ full sky light pollution citizen-operated stations. This will provide synchronized data coinciding with the NITESat overpasses as well as providing near continuous night sky quality monitoring. If the initial mission is a success, the potential exists to expand the program into a low cost constellation of satellites capable of delivering global coverage. NITESat is being designed, built and will be operated by the Far Horizons program at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. Far Horizons is a student and volunteer centered program offering hands-on engineering and scientific research opportunities for education.

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Adapting a Large-Scale Multimission Ground System for Low-Cost CubeSats

Space Operations: Innovations, Inventions, and Discoveries ◽

10.2514/5.9781624101991.0037.0060 ◽

2015 ◽

pp. 37-60

Author(s):

William L. Quach ◽

Lloyd R. DeForrest ◽

Andrew T. Klesh ◽

Joshua B. Schoolcraft

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

Low Cost ◽

Ground System

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Integrated Science Operations of CASSIOPE e-POP with the Swarm Constellation for New Studies of Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-3760 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Andrew Yau ◽

Andrew Howarth ◽

H. Gordon James ◽

David Knudsen ◽

Richard Langley ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Low Cost ◽

European Space Agency ◽

Satellite Orbit ◽

Third Party ◽

Ionospheric Scintillation ◽

Satellite Mission ◽

Space Agency ◽

Science Operations ◽

Fourth Component ◽

Coupling Processes

The CASSIOPE Enhanced Polar Outflow Probe (e-POP) was originally envisioned as a low-cost, short-lifetime (18-month) small-satellite mission for investigating polar ion outflows and related magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling phenomena. However, e-POP is currently in its seventh year of continuing operation, as an addition to and as the fourth component of the Swarm constellation of satellites, under the European Space Agency Third Party Mission Programme.Since 2017, the increased operation duty-cycle of e-POP has enabled the routine extension of its science operations to its full altitude range and to all latitudes, and made possible several new studies of important mid- and low-latitude topside ionospheric phenomena. In addition, the integrated e-POP and Swarm operation takes advantage of the synergy between the orbit characteristics and unique instrument capabilities between e-POP and Swarm, to enable or enhance a host of coordinated studies of magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling: including the Earth&#8217;s magnetic field and related current systems, auroral and upper atmospheric dynamics, and ionosphere-thermosphere and ionosphere-plasmasphere coupling processes. We present an overview of these new studies, focusing on their results on the effects of space weather in the ionosphere and upper atmosphere such as anomalous satellite orbit drag and ionospheric scintillation.

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The Earthnet Data Assessment Pilot Project: Paving the Way for New Space Players

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-22245 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Samuel Hunt ◽

Nigel Fox ◽

Kevin Halsall ◽

Andrea Melchiorre ◽

Sébastien Saunier ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Quality Assessment ◽

Low Cost ◽

Pilot Project ◽

Earth Observation ◽

Data Availability ◽

Observation Data ◽

Satellite Mission ◽

Satellite Systems ◽

Data Assessment ◽

Data Products

In recent years, the increasing range of applications of Earth Observation data products and availability of low-cost satellites has resulted in an increasing number of commercial satellite systems. These services may provide complementary capabilities to those of Space Agencies.&#8239; Adoption of these data products for many applications requires that they meet an assured level of quality that is fit for the given purpose.&#8239; For the most efficient exploitation of EO data,&#8239; therefore, &#8239;assessment of data quality, calibration and validation are indispensable tasks,&#8239; forming&#8239; the basis for reliable scientific conclusions.&#8239;&#160;&#160;In this context, the&#160;European Space&#8239; Agency&#160;has established the&#160;Earthnet&#8239; Data Assessment Pilot &#8239;(EDAP)&#160;project, which&#160;aims to enable maximum exploitation of&#160;growing&#160;data availability&#160;by&#160;performing&#160;early data assessment for various missions that fall into one of the following instrument domains&#160;number of&#8239; missions, in&#8239;the Optical, SAR and atmospheric&#8239; domains.&#8239;These assessments&#160;are&#160;intended to&#160;evaluate and report the quality of a satellite mission with respect to what is&#160;&#8220;fit for purpose&#8221; within the context of the&#160;its&#160;stated performance and application.&#8239;This activity compliments similar activities from other international partners, including NASA.&#160;&#160;Such quality information&#160;is often&#8239; communicated to users&#8239; in an ill-defined&#160;or&#160;incomplete manner.&#8239; We show the development of a&#160;generic&#160;satellite mission quality assessment framework,&#160;developed within EDAP, which is&#160;designed&#8239; provide&#160;a&#8239; thorough&#8239; review&#8239; of &#8239;all important &#8239;aspects of &#8239;mission quality.&#160;The&#160;assessment&#160;results&#160;are&#8239; conveye d&#8239;ata top &#8239;level &#8239;to the user &#8239;as a quality assessment matrix diagram.&#8239;The framework &#8239;itself &#8239;is based on &#8239;the principles of CEOS QA4EO (Quality Assurance for Earth Observation)&#8239; and&#8239; builds&#8239; on the experience&#8239; of &#8239;several &#8239;European projects that worked towards&#8239; practically &#8239;implementing them.&#160;&#160;In a wider context,&#8239; such a&#8239; framework has&#8239; potential for&#8239; more general use &#8239;in&#160;both institutional and&#160;commercial&#160;Earth Observation &#8239;&#8211;&#8239; helping &#8239;mission providers&#8239; to understand&#8239; the &#8239;information their&#8239; users &#8239;need and&#8239; empowering &#8239;users &#8239;to make informed decisions about which data is fit for their purpose.&#8239; As such,&#160;there is&#160;potential for&#160;international collaboration,&#160;between space agencies,&#160;to synergise quality&#160;assessment&#160;approaches&#160;and to work towards the development of a common standard.

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Design and Development of a Low Cost Ground System for CubeSat

International Journal for Research in Applied Science and Engineering Technology ◽

10.22214/ijraset.2021.32948 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 867-875

Author(s):

Gelli Kusal Venkata Sai Shravanth

Keyword(s):

Low Cost ◽

Design And Development ◽

Ground System

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Development of a Solid-State Inflation Balloon Deorbiter

Volume 10: Micro- and Nano-Systems Engineering and Packaging ◽

10.1115/imece2016-67467 ◽

2016 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Morgan Roddy ◽

Adam Huang

Keyword(s):

Solid State ◽

Aerodynamic Drag ◽

Low Cost ◽

Full Range ◽

Gas Generator ◽

Satellite Mission ◽

Micro Electro Mechanical Systems ◽

Small Satellites ◽

Metal Insulator Metal ◽

Resistive Heater

In this paper we report on the current development of the Solid State Inflation Balloon (SSIB), a simple, reliable, low-cost, non-propulsive deorbit mechanism for the full range of small satellites (<180kg). Small satellites typically rely on aerodynamic drag to deorbit within the FAA’s 25 year requirements. The SSIB will enhance aerodynamic drag by inflating a balloon at the end-of-life of a satellite mission. This technology will provide a scalable and non-existing capability, low-cost deorbit, for applications in the full-range of smallsats, from CubeSats to MicroSats. The proposed SSIB system is composed of three major components: a Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) Solid-State Gas Generator (SSGG) chip, a balloon structure made of thin metallized polyimide films such as Kapton® HN composed of multiple lenticular gores which will form a spherical balloon, and a subsystem package suitable for spacecraft integration. The SSGG is composed of a 2D addressable array of Sodium Azide (NaN3) crystals on a glass substrate. The crystals are contained in wells formed by a thick-film of epoxy polymer (SU-8). Under each well is a resistive heater that is selectively addressed using Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM) diode networks. When heated to above 350 °C, the NaN3 spontaneously decomposes to generate N2 gas in time scales on the order of 10 milliseconds. Each well can be designed with a typical volume of 10−15 m3 to 10−6 m3 of NaN3. The SSIB system has built-in redundancy due to the fact that the SSGG is a scalable chip design and can incorporate as many gas generating wells as a mission may dictate. Additionally, the SSIB can mitigate balloon leaks by sequential deployment of additional gas wells and can thereby maintain the inflated state of the balloon. The SSIB system will be low power (< 1 W) and have low mass (mass is proportional to the size of the required balloon). Initial simulations have shown that the SSIB can deorbit small satellites from above 1000 km within 25 years.

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Adapting a Large-Scale Multi-Mission Ground System for Low-Cost CubeSats

SpaceOps 2014 Conference ◽

10.2514/6.2014-1634 ◽

2014 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

William L. Quach ◽

Lloyd DeForrest ◽

Andrew T. Klesh ◽

Josh Schoolcraft

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

Low Cost ◽

Ground System

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Design of Attitude Control Systems for CubeSat-Class Nanosatellite

Journal of Control Science and Engineering ◽

10.1155/2013/657182 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 2013 ◽

pp. 1-15 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Junquan Li ◽

Mark Post ◽

Thomas Wright ◽

Regina Lee

Keyword(s):

Control System ◽

System Design ◽

Attitude Control ◽

Low Cost ◽

Control System Design ◽

Nonlinear Controller ◽

Attitude Control System ◽

Satellite Mission ◽

Design Work ◽

Fine Control

We present a satellite attitude control system design using low-cost hardware and software for a 1U CubeSat. The attitude control system architecture is a crucial subsystem for any satellite mission since precise pointing is often required to meet mission objectives. The accuracy and precision requirements are even more challenging for small satellites where limited volume, mass, and power are available for the attitude control system hardware. In this proposed embedded attitude control system design for a 1U CubeSat, pointing is obtained through a two-stage approach involving coarse and fine control modes. Fine control is achieved through the use of three reaction wheels or three magnetorquers and one reaction wheel along the pitch axis. Significant design work has been conducted to realize the proposed architecture. In this paper, we present an overview of the embedded attitude control system design; the verification results from numerical simulation studies to demonstrate the performance of a CubeSat-class nanosatellite; and a series of air-bearing verification tests on nanosatellite attitude control system hardware that compares the performance of the proposed nonlinear controller with a proportional-integral-derivative controller.

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