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NASA NTRS2018

Development of the Multi-Angle Stratospheric Aerosol Radiometer (MASTAR)

The contribution of atmospheric aerosols to the Earth's energy budget is an important and relatively uncertain component of the Earth system, with correspondingly large uncertainties implied for climate models. Comprehensive observations of the vertical profile of aerosol extinction are needed to accurately characterize these particles (e.g. composition, size, spatial and temporal distribution) to properly account for their climate impacts and constrain models. Satellite limb scattering measurements provide superior results for observations of stratospheric aerosols compared to occultation measurements. We are developing a compact instrument called Multi-Angle Stratospheric Aerosol Radiometer (MASTAR) that simplifies the current OMPS Limb Profiler design to fit into a 3U Cubesat configuration, and also provides important supplemental information through the use of multiple simultaneous viewing directions.

Deland, Matthew↗
NASA NTRS2021

Second Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation Structure and Storm Intensity With a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS) Mission Applications Workshop

The NASA Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS) mission is a constellation of state-of-the-science observing platforms that will measure temperature and humidity soundings and precipitation with spatial resolution comparable to current operational passive microwave (PMW) sounders but with unprecedented temporal resolution (Mission Website).1 TROPICS is a cost-capped ($30.2 million), Venture-class mission funded by the NASA Earth Science Division (ESD) and led by Principal Investigator Dr. William Blackwell from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory (MIT LL). The mission consists of a constellation of six, three-unit (3U) CubeSats (approximately 10×10×34 cm), each hosting a 12-channel PMW spectrometer based on the Micro-sized Microwave Atmospheric Satellite-2 (MicroMAS-2) developed at MIT LL, but with a substantially improved design. TROPICS will provide imagery near 91 and 205 GHz, temperature sounding near 118 GHz, and moisture sounding near 183 GHz. Spatial resolution at nadir will be around 27 km for temperature and 17 km for moisture and precipitation with a swath width of approximately 2,000 km from a 550-km orbit altitude. Both the spatial resolution and swath width are similar to the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) that is being flown as part of the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). In addition, TROPICS meets many of the requirements outlined in the 2007 Decadal Survey for the Precision and All-Weather Tempera-ture and Humidity (PATH) mission, which was originally envisioned as a microwave instrument in geostationary orbit. TROPICS enables temporal resolution approaching that of geostationary orbit but at a much lower cost, demonstrating a technology that could impact the design of future Earth-observing missions. The satellites for the TROPICS mission were delivered to NASA in 2019 for launches planned in the 2021–2022 timeframe. The primary mission objective of TROPICS is to relate temperature, humidity, and precipitation structure to the evolution of tropical cyclone (TC) intensity.

remote sensing↗
NASA NTRS2015

Deployment Technology of a Heliogyro Solar Sail for Long Duration Propulsion

Interplanetary, multi-mission, station-keeping capabilities will require that a spacecraft employ a highly efficient propulsion-navigation system. The majority of space propulsion systems are fuel-based and require the vehicle to carry and consume fuel as part of the mission. Once the fuel is consumed, the mission is set, thereby limiting the potential capability. Alternatively, a method that derives its acceleration and direction from solar photon pressure using a solar sail would eliminate the requirement of onboard fuel to meet mission objectives. MacNeal theorized that the heliogyro-configured solar sail architecture would be lighter, less complex, cheaper, and less risky to deploy a large sail area versus a masted sail. As sail size increases, the masted sail requires longer booms resulting in increased mass, and chaotic uncontrollable deployment. With a heliogyro, the sail membrane is stowed as a roll of thin film forming a blade when deployed that can extend up to kilometers. Thus, a benefit of using a heliogyro-configured solar sail propulsion technology is the mission scalability as compared to masted versions, which are size constrained. Studies have shown that interplanetary travel is achievable by the heliogyro solar sail concept. Heliogyro solar sail concept also enables multi-mission missions such as sample returns, and supply transportation from Earth to Mars as well as station-keeping missions to provide enhanced warning of solar storm. This paper describes deployment technology being developed at NASA Langley Research Center to deploy and control the center-of-mass/center-of-pressure using a twin bladed heliogyro solar sail 6-unit (6U) CubeSat. The 6U comprises 2x2U blade deployers and 2U for payload. The 2U blade deployers can be mounted to 6U or larger scaled systems to serve as a non-chemical in-space propulsion system. A single solar sail blade length is estimated to be 2.4 km with a total area from two blades of 720 m2; total allowable weight of a 6U CubeSat is approximately 8 kg. This makes the theoretical characteristic acceleration of approximately 0.75 mm/s2 at I AU (astronomical unit), when compared to IKAROS (0.005 mm/s2) and NanoSail-D (0.02 mm/s2).

Peerawan, Wiwattananon↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Automating Maneuvers: Considerations for Collision Avoidance

As more space operators implement large constellations of spacecraft, automating orbit maintenance maneuvers becomes a key feature of their operations concept to ensure that the workload is manageable. However the practice of performing a maneuver without sharing the plan with other nearby spacecraft causes a risk that two spacecraft will collide, not only destroying the spacecraft involved, but creating debris that will affect all other spacecraft using that orbit regime. In order to share the maneuver plan, a predicted ephemeris file containing the maneuver must be sent to a central authority to screen against predicted trajectories of all other on-orbit objects to determine where and when close approaches may occur that need to be mitigated. Currently the screening authority used by US operators is the 19th Space Defense Squadron. However the conjunction screening process in use by the 19th was developed over 30 years ago and was not designed with automation in mind, so screenings are performed once every 8 hours, meaning that spacecraft using automated maneuvering need to allow 16 hours to share their maneuver plan via the screening process. Many operators assume that automated maneuver planning must be real-time; however this time between planning and execution to allow for screening is possible if planned for during system design. In an effort to speed up the screening process, NASA has developed a prototype system for performing near-real-time screenings. This prototype system was necessitated to support the NASA Starling mission, a constellation of 4 cubesats that planned to fly at the same altitude as the SpaceX Starlink constellation, both performing automated maneuvering. Without screening of the planned maneuvers, the two constellations risked a collision. Once converted from a prototype to an operational system, this capability will greatly help smallsats, for example those that are planning to test propulsive capabilities, by allowing fast turnaround feedback to ensure safety form collision with other objects. This paper describes the existing CA process, the prototype real-time capability, and results from the experiment that tested the prototype.

Matthew Hejduk↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

GN&C Flight Experience and Lessons Learned from BioSentinel: A 6U Deep Space Cubesat

This paper reviews the flight experiences of the BioSentinel propulsion and Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS) teams. BioSentinel is a 6U cubesat that launched as a secondary payload aboard the Space Launch System's (SLS) maiden flight in November of 2022 and is now operating in an Earth trailing heliocentric orbit. We discuss the mission's original GNC approach as well as several improvements made in-flight, in particular a novel approach to gyro bias estimation in the spacecraft’s sun safe controller. The development and flight experience of the spacecraft's RCS propulsion system is also discussed, along with modifications made to the momentum management approach in response to a failed thruster valve. Finally, we present lessons learned and recommendations for GNC design in future deep-space cubesats.

BioSentinel↗
NASA NTRS2019

Simulation-to-Flight 1 (STF-1): Automating the Planning, Scheduling, Assessment and Data Processing/Reduction for a Small Satellite

On December 16, 2019, a 3-U CubeSat named STF-1 launched as West Virginia's first spacecraft. This event marked the culmination of a run-up to launch involving the production of the spacecraft, creation/configuration of command and control infrastructure, and the evolution of its co-creation, the NASA Operational Simulator for Small Satellites (NOS3). This event also marked the beginning of a new phase: operations. While plans, procedures, and infrastructure were already in place or started for operations, many lessons were learned during the operations phase, especially during early operations (first month/commissioning phase). Additional plans, procedures, and infrastructure, especially related to communication planning and automated data processing, were created and developed to fill needs for the operation of the STF-1 mission.This paper and presentation will overview the STF-1 operations team's solutions to addressing the many needs of operating a low-earth orbiting CubeSat mission with a single ground antenna that is shared and scheduled with several other missions. The STF-1 operations team deployed a combination of virtualization technologies, ground station technology solutions, collaboration software, custom planning software solutions, and existing ground antenna scheduling solutions to create an effective and efficient CubeSat operations environment. The end-solution satisfied the operations stakeholders, which include NASA, its industry partner TMC Technologies, and four independent professor-student teams at West Virginia University.

CubeSat↗
NASA NTRS2019

STF-1 Ground Operations - Automating the Planning, Scheduling, Assessment and Data Processing/Reduction for a Small Satellite

On December 16, 2018, a 3-U CubeSat named STF-1 launched as West Virginia's first spacecraft. This event marked the culmination of a run-up to launch involving the production of the spacecraft, creation/configuration of command and control infrastructure, and the evolution of its co-creation, the NASA Operational Simulator for Small Satellites (NOS3). This event also marked the beginning of a new phase: operations. While plans, procedures, and infrastructure were already in place or started for operations, many lessons were learned during the operations phase, especially during early operations (first month/commissioning phase). Additional plans, procedures, and infrastructure, especially related to communication planning and automated data processing, were created and developed to fill needs for the operation of the STF-1 mission.This paper and presentation will overview the STF-1 operations team's solutions to addressing the many needs of operating a low-earth orbiting CubeSat mission with a single ground antenna that is shared and scheduled with several other missions. The STF-1 operations team deployed a combination of virtualization technologies, ground station technology solutions, collaboration software, custom planning software solutions, and existing ground antenna scheduling solutions to create an effective and efficient CubeSat operations environment. The end-solution satisfied the operations stakeholders, which include NASA, its industry partner TMC2 Technologies, and four independent professor-student teams at West Virginia University.

Suder, Mark↗
NASA NTRS2017

The Next Generation of Spaceborne Radars for Cloud and Precipitation Measurements

NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) is currently developing advanced instrument concepts and technologies for the next generation of spaceborne atmospheric radars for clouds and precipitation measurements. Two representative examples are the Radar in a CubeSat (RainCube) – a miniaturized Ka-band precipitation intensity profiling radar for operation on a 6U CubeSat bus; and the Multi-Application Smallsat Tri-band Radar (MASTR) – a Ku/Ka/W band, electronic scanning, and Doppler atmospheric radar. These radar concepts will be capable of providing information on both the state and the process of the atmospheric water (as opposed to just the state information provided by existing spaceborne radars) to fill the current observational gaps in the advancement of weather and climate models.

Im, Eastwood↗
NASA NTRS2022

Robust Vision-based Multi-spacecraft Guidance Navigation and Control using CNN-based Pose Estimation

In this paper, we present an end-to-end simulation framework for tracking an uncooperative Target spacecraft in Low Earth Orbit using a CubeSat-class Ego spacecraft outfitted with a camera. Currently, capturing high-fidelity realistic images in space for this scenario is difficult and exorbitantly expensive. Therefore, we developed a framework to simulate the spacecraft orbits in Basilisk software and generate high-fidelity realistic images of spacecraft in Unreal Engine, including the effects from Sun, Earth, Moon and stars. The Ego spacecraft uses cameras to capture images of the uncooperative Target and estimates its position and attitude using a CNN based 6DOF pose estimation pipeline, eliminating need for large SWAP-C(Size, Weight, Power and Cost) sensors like LIDAR or reliance on inter-spacecraft communication, This CNN, which is motivated by ESA’s Pose Estimation challenge of 2019, is trained using simulated data from our end-to-end simulation framework. We compare the performance of two distinct CNNbased algorithms for pose estimation along a nominal trajectory. In presence of non-Gaussian modeling uncertainties, the statedependent estimation error is characterized with a quadratic upper-bound. The quadratically-bounded error can be used by a robust controller to maneuver

Rahmani, Amir↗
NASA NTRS2016

JPL's Foundry Furnace: Web-Based Concurrent Engineering for Formulation

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Innovation Foundry is an enterprise tasked with shepherding space mission concepts through the formulation lifecycle. It oversees a number of “virtual teams” for the various stages of formulation. Among these is Team X, which has had considerable success over its more than 20-year history. In a Team X study, domain experts (including engineers devoted to the various spacecraft subsystems) work concurrently and collaboratively over several days to arrive at a feasible point design with a reasonable cost estimate. They use a set of linked Excel workbooks, each developed and approved by a responsible “line organization” within JPL. This toolset has served Team X well over the years, and has evolved since its inception. At the same time, the Innovation Foundry’s portfolio of formulation teams has expanded, and so has the scope of the design challenges they face. The A-Team runs workshop-like architecture studies to focus science investigations, generate mission concepts, assess feasibility, and explore trade spaces. Team Xc performs rapid point design in the style of Team X, but for CubeSats and small spacecraft, using a different toolset. Proposal teams further mature concepts to the point where they can be proposed. Recognizing the importance of trade space modeling combined with new IT services for providing and integrating data, JPL is developing the Foundry Furnace web-based software infrastructure. It will support A-Team, Team Xc, and Team X, providing study management, a catalog of hardware components, a library of re-usable analyses, and a design environment. It is a modernization of JPL’s concurrent engineering infrastructure, embracing the core concepts of Model-Based Systems Engineering, and built with modern software design philosophies.

Murphy, Jonathan↗
NASA NTRS2018

Nasa's Space Launch System: Exceptional Opportunities for Secondary Payloads to Deep Space

When NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) launches for the first time from Kennedy Space Center, it will send the Orion crew vehicle farther into space than a human-rated spacecraft has ever traveled. The primary objectives of this first uncrewed mission, Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), focus on verifying and validating the new technologies and integrated systems developed for SLS, Orion and Exploration Ground Systems (EGS), which together comprise NASA’s new deep space exploration system. EM-1 also provides the opportunity for 13 6U CubeSat secondary payloads to be deployed in deep space. As progress is being made toward that first launch, planning is also taking place for secondary payload opportunities on future missions. This paper will provide an overview of the status of the SLS Block 1 launch vehicle and an overview of the 6U payloads selected for EM-1. In addition, an overview of the EM-1 mission trajectories and the “bus stops” along the trajectory where the payloads will be deployed will be noted. Challenges and new workflows required in identifying and certifying potential payloads will be discussed. The paper will also discuss opportunities that will be presented by future evolutions of SLS.

Robinson, Kimberly F.↗
NASA NTRS2019

Compact Coherent Laser Ranging (CCLR)

Presents a design to develop a Compact Coherent Laser Ranging with the following goals: Match the performance as GRACE-FO, with much reduced SWaP to fit on mini-Sat or CubeSat; Enables low cost and more frequent LL-SST gravitational missions; Immunes from ionosphere propagation delay with optical ranging; Increases the body pointing capability due to small satellite.

photon counting detector↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Space Launch System Artemis I CubeSats: SmallSat Vanguards of Exploration, Science and Technology

When NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket launches in 2021 with the Orion crew vehicle, it will lay the foundation for NASA’s goal of landing the first woman and the next man on the Moon as part of the Artemis program. This first flight—Artemis I—will also mark a milestone for smallsats. Thirteen6U CubeSats are manifested on the Artemis I flight, the first fleet of CubeSats carried as a ride share opportunity to deep space.(NASA’s first CubeSats to deep space, the twin Mars Cube One [MarCO] spacecraft, were an integral part of the InSight Mars lander mission). The Artemis I CubeSat manifest represents a diverse collection of smallsats performing an array of science missions and technology demonstrations. Payloads from NASA, international partners, academia and industry will execute a variety of experiments. Several smallsats will perform lunar-focused missions that may return data that addresses Strategic Knowledge Gaps (SKGs) in the agency’s lunar exploration program. Indeed, the Artemis I CubeSats will be in the vanguard of the agency’s 21st-century lunar program. The Artemis I missions will produce data to support space radiation awareness,crewed landings and in-situ resource utilization, helping to support a sustained human lunar presence. Several of the Artemis I CubeSats are demonstrating new technologies, including propulsion capabilities. Among the Artemis I CubeSats are three selected through NASA’s Cube Quest Challenge, part of the Centennial Challenges program. These three missions will compete for prize money while meeting specific technical development goals. Payloads from the Japanese and Italian space agencies provide an early opportunity for international involvement in the Artemis program. Student involvement in almost half of the payloads allow STEM engagement with NASA’s Artemis program. The SLS Block 1 vehicle for the Artemis I flight is manufactured with several elements delivered to Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and being prepared for stacking and integration. The new-development of the program, the 212-footcore stage with its four RS-25 engines installed is currently at Stennis Space Center (SSC) for “green run” testing. Following the green run test campaign, the stage will ship to KSC, where it will be integrated with the rest of the vehicle, including the upper stage adapter, where the Artemis I smallsats will be housed.

Kimberly F Robinson↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

The Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) IV Pathfinder

Atmospheric aerosols and ozone are designated as observing system priorities in the 2017–2027 Decadal Survey report [1]. Accurate records of stratospheric aerosols are a vital piece of the puzzle regarding climate change. Stratospheric ozone has been the subject of observation and research for decades. Its importance is exhibited in the United States Clean Air Act [2], which mandates that NASA monitor atmospheric ozone. Measurements from satellites provided data on the initial decline of ozone in the late 1970s and early 1980s that supported the adoption of the Montreal Protocol, and current observations hint at a potential recovery. Adequate determination of that recovery requires continuous and, in the case of multiple instruments, overlapping data records. However, most current satellite systems are well beyond their expected lifetimes, and so we look towards the future of satellite observations of stratospheric ozone and aerosols to develop the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) IV Pathfinder. Enabled by the NASA Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO)’s Instrument Incubator Program (IIP), the SAGE IV Pathfinder project has developed and validated a prototype demonstration that paves the way for a future SAGE IV spaceflight mission. Utilizing solar occultation imaging, SAGE IV will be capable of measuring ozone, aerosol, and other trace gas species with the same quality as previous SAGE instruments but with greatly improved pointing knowledge. Furthermore, current technological advancements allow SAGE IV to fit within a CubeSat framework and make use of commercial hardware, significantly reducing the size and cost when compared with traditional missions and enabling sustainability of future measurements. SAGE IV will meet the definition of the newly-recommended Venture-Continuity missions by “bringing forward innovative approaches to sustain measurements at lower costs”. The latest results from development of the SAGE IV Pathfinder are presented. [1] “Thriving on Our Changing Planet: A Decadal Strategy for Earth Observation from Space,” National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2018. [2] “United State Clean Air Act,” 42 U.S.C. 767 1b(d)(2).

Robert Damadeo↗
NASA NTRS2018

Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute's Federated Databases and State of the Art of Small Spacecraft Technology Report

NASA's Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute (S3VI) is collaborating with the Air Force Research Laboratory and Space Dynamics Laboratory on the development of a small spacecraft parts database called SmallSat Parts On Orbit Now (SPOON). The SPOON database contains small spacecraft parts and technologies categorized by major satellite subsystems developed by industry, academia and government. The State of the Art of Small Spacecraft Technology report reflects small spacecraft parts submitted to the SPOON database and technologies compiled from other sources that were assessed as the current state of the art in each of the major subsystems. The report, first commissioned by NASA's Small Spacecraft Technology Program in mid-2013, is developed in response to the continuing growth in interest in using small spacecraft for many types of missions in Earth orbit and beyond. Due to the high market penetration of CubeSats, particular emphasis is placed on the state of the art of CubeSat-related technology. The 2018 report is planned for release in late summer. A review of SPOON database functionality, federation of additional NASA-internal and external databases along with a common search capability, as well as an overview of the State of the Art of Small Spacecraft Technology report will be presented. The S3VI is jointly sponsored by NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate and Science Mission Directorate.

Small spacecraft↗
NASA NTRS2019

Deployable CubeSat Antennas for Deep Space and Earth Science Missions

New antenna technologies have unlocked a new class of missions using CubeSats for Earth Science or Deep Space operations. This class of small satellites have historically been mostly used as teaching tools allowing students to design and test small satellites and develop space experiments. With the rise of new game-changing antenna technologies, overcoming their small size and need for high gain, they can now be used beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Over the past 5 years, technologists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have designed, tested and successfully flown these innovative Smallsat antennas, enabling new telecommunication and science achievements.

Cwik, Tom↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

BioSentinel Deep Space CubeSat Mission

The BioSentinel mission was recently launched aboard the SLS launch vehicle (LV) as part of the Artemis-1 campaign. This 6U CubeSat carries yeast cells to analyze the effects of radiation at large distances from Earth, becoming the first biological payload in Deep Space. Prelaunch activities included mission design updates, orbit determination rehearsals and the development of a tracking schedule in coordination with the Artemis-1 payload office and the Deep Space Network (DSN). An important influence on the trajectories of Artemis I secondaries was the uncertainty associated with deployment from the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion System (ICPS), the upper stage of the SLS LV. The ICPS was rotating at a rate of 1 rpm; there was also uncertainty in the spin axis attitude, which translated into an unknown clock angle of deployment. The variability in this angle and magnitude of deployment implied the existence of a non-negligible risk of a lunar impact, which was evaluated for various potential launch dates. On November 16 th 2022 BioSentinel successfully deployed from ICPS and the navigation team started to receive tracking data from the DSN and ESA antennas. Soon after deployment, the spacecraft was tumbling and entered safe mode. The mission team recovered the spacecraft and after four tracking passes, we solved for a first ephemeris that was sent to the DSN for better tracking of the spacecraft. After propagating this first ephemeris solution, we determined that we avoided impact with a margin of a few hundred km from the lunar surface. More tracking data over the next few days allowed for a more refined orbit solution predicting a periselene altitude of 406 km and a lunar eclipse lasting 36.5 minutes. Therefore, BioSentinel operators avoided any correction maneuvers on the trajectory and successfully tracked and guide the spacecraft. The spacecraft performed a nominal lunar flyby which provided the pertinent energy to achieve a final Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit. Over the course of two weeks, the mission operators corroborated that the subsystems were functioning as expected after the lunar eclipse and the large ΔV incurred. Science operations started once the mission achieved the nominal orbit in Deep Space. This paper discusses in detail the BioSentinel flight performance, as well as the challenges and lessons learned prior to and during this CubeSat mission.

Andres Dono Perez↗
NASA NTRS2015

Using Additive Manufacturing to Print a CubeSat Propulsion System

CubeSats are increasingly being utilized for missions traditionally ascribed to larger satellites CubeSat unit (1U) defined as 10 cm x 10 cm x 11 cm. Have been built up to 6U sizes. CubeSats are typically built up from commercially available off-the-shelf components, but have limited capabilities. By using additive manufacturing, mission specific capabilities (such as propulsion), can be built into a system. This effort is part of STMD Small Satellite program Printing the Complete CubeSat. Interest in propulsion concepts for CubeSats is rapidly gaining interest-Numerous concepts exist for CubeSat scale propulsion concepts. The focus of this effort is how to incorporate into structure using additive manufacturing. End-use of propulsion system dictates which type of system to develop-Pulse-mode RCS would require different system than a delta-V orbital maneuvering system. Team chose an RCS system based on available propulsion systems and feasibility of printing using a materials extrusion process. Initially investigated a cold-gas propulsion system for RCS applications-Materials extrusion process did not permit adequate sealing of part to make this a functional approach.

electric propulsion systems↗