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Visit to UGA SmallSat Research Lab in order to understand the overlaps of two very similar missions (theirs and ours) as well as understanding how they run their lab, program management, student management and transfer of knowledge. How we can collaborate and share ideas.
Lab: Clean room, EDS, FlatSat
Team communication: Google Drive, Slack
Team hierarchy: PM->leads->subsystems & faculty on the side
Minutes
Present: Caleb Adams, Nick Hollis, David Cotten, Deepak Mishra, Mariusz
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- Started in 2015 with initiative by David and Caleb. Received funding from NASA to create a mission. Proposal sent by Deepak and David to do coastal monitoring from space (hyperspectral imagery) and won the competition between several universities.
- SSRL is initiated by Dept. of Geography and Dept. of Physics, approved by Dean. The physical lab is in Physics building.
- Team size fluctuates between 30-50 people (students, faculty, summer interns) throughout the year
- The SmallSat Research lab is purely created and run by volunteering students
- There is no research credit given for undergrads now but David wishes to employ this such that people get trained
- Only paid people are summer interns – which are there throughout the summer to have continuous flow
- Faculty only work as advisors, not bosses. PM and leads work as “bosses” and run the lab.
- David teaches a course about CubeSats at UGA
- UGA does not have Aerospace Engineering department like Georgia Tech – hence SSRL is more interdisciplinary (and potentially more creative).
- The students background mainly come from Computer Science, Mechanical Eng., Electrical Eng., Advertisement, Arts – Please see Personnel Budget Document.
- You would be surprised how students from Advertisement, Arts etc. can contribute!
- They have no biology/remote sensing expert – Deepak Mishra is (faculty)
Interviews
- They have 3 round process of interview once a semester.
- Get perhaps 200 applicants
- 50 % are immediately cut off – looking for skilled people that are needed for specific tasks that are advertised
- GPA doesn’t matter that much. Normally varies between GPA 2.0-4.0 for accepted students.
- Second and last round are more personal interviews
- 5 % acceptance rate – i.e. they select normally only 8-12 out of 200.
- First and foremost it is passion that counts most as well as team-working skills and social abilities
- It helps if they have done some significance in extracurricular activities and developed something – e.g. Arduino projects, computers etc.
How they run the lab
- Project Manager solely runs the lab – ownership of the projects are with the students, not the faculty
- Lab students normally work 10 hrs a day (incl. UGA lectures+coursework), but all is voluntary
- Faculty gives advice and keeps in-check where critically necessary (conflicts, low resources)
- Confidence given to Caleb and Nick Hollis (PM and chief engineer).
- For mission design they follow the NASA/ESA standard with some short-cuts though mainly:
- Requirements
- Define science requirements (Deepak gave a lot of these)
- Define mission objectives
- Define mission success criteria
- Define mission requirements (functional & non-functional) & constraints
- System Requirements
- Requirements
- Reviews (mandatory when funded by NASA and US Air Force)
- Mission Definition Review
- PDR
- CDR
- They get tricky questions but exteriors always try to simplify things – very helpful feedback
- No delays to this date
- Between each formal review they run delta-reviews. These are:
- Internal reviews
- Follow a standard template
- Trains them and prepares them
- Train STEM students 5 times a year
- Supported by NASA
- But mainly SSRL’s passion
- Well appreciated in the community
- Teach: how to build Arduino, how to build cubeSat etc.
- Motto 1: “Have fun”
- They have couch and video games in the lab (David was against it but it works even better!)
- Makes people stay longer and being informal (also with faculty – low-level communications is very important)
- Social activities
- Motto 2: “Ask a lot of questions”
- Even "stupid" ones
- Caleb asks a lot of questions
- Be curious They
- questionsBe curiousThey use slack for mobile/online communications
- Faculty is not involved in all channels, they don’t want to – it can limit things.
- They have their own “fun” channel – much like our “random” channel.
Transfer & keeping knowledge
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- Flight Software: KubeOS, MajorTom (https://www.kubos.com)
- Does not interface with all subsystems (e.g. NanoAvionics or those that run on CSP client)
- Interfaces with Pumpkin and some ClydeSpace COTS as well as GomSpace EPS
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- Couch, “fun area”, posters
- 10-12 PCs
- Clean Room (Class 1000, ISO6 standard)
- They received this for free from Physics department
- Some minor modifications
- They do everything related to the cubesat here (except for FlatSat), incl. the optics!
- EDS area
- Tables for electronics
- FlatSat configuration (all components except for ADCS and solar panels)
- They follow Lean procedure for tools and equipment in the drawers, shelves
- Label everything
- Stickers on everything
- Put back immediately after done
- Ground station area (PC, servers, radios)
- Brainstorm/discussion area with 2 white boards
- They have a T-VAC chamber in the works (remodified pressure chamber)
- They DON’T have Helmholtz coils and ADCS testbeds – need to do this
Pictures:
Summary
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- Project is almost fully student-led and student-driven, voluntarily, passionate about what they do. Student ownership emphasized.
- Faculty act as advisors. They interfere when critical (conflicts). Informal communications - sense of a team.
- Low acceptance rate. 200 applicants per semester. 8-12/200 accepted through 3 round-process interview.
- Students (incl interns) work throughout the year (no extensive/formal holidays) - always somebody in the lab
- They will support us with both technical documentation and how to run the lab
- They will provide Clean Room and ESD documents
- Mechanical + thermal analysis
- Concept of operations document
- We should coordinate overlapping mission requirements
- Targets
- Use of ground stations
- Data processing
- SPOC+MOCI essentially works in synergy as our HYPSO mission will
- Evelyn should set up a meeting with Caleb regarding programmatics and project management
- Help them with ADCS testing (HW)
- Connect them with G-NAT at NASA Ames
- Give them material from NUTS
- Share ideas on:
- Data processing chain
- Super-resolution
- ADCS
- HYPSO and SPOC+MOCI should act as inter-calibration platforms
- Evelyn should set up a meeting with Caleb regarding programmatics and project management
Collaboration domains
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- Science objectives, what to observe
- Greenland aspect
- Monitor Georgia coastline, give data products to them
- Connect them to our science board (Deepak knows many of these)
- Ground Station
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Follow-ups:
Caleb:
- Template/example for exit reports
- Presentation slides (overview of mission, CONOPS etc.)
- Documentation on thermal+mechanical analysis.
- Personnel management report
- Clean Room + EDS documentation
- Timeline chart for each mission?
- High-level description for FlatSat arrangement?
- Meet with Evelyn over Skype
Mariusz sends:
- Slides: Overview of HYPSO & mission design
- ADCS testing procedures + Overview of GNAT test lab and connect them with GNAT, though they are limited to only using sensors and not actuators at the moment.
- Send alternative to atmospheric correction algorithms (Rick Stumpf's methods).
- Our list of our science board (please let me know if you want to get in touch with any of them)
- Concept paper when mature
- Work on super-resolution and data processing when we get there
- Check out KubOS flight software: https://www.kubos.com
Description of SPOC:
“The SPectral Ocean Color (SPOC) satellite mission, was funded through NASA’s second iteration of the Undergraduate Student Instrument Project (USIP) in mid 2016.The SPOC's mission is to acquire moderate resolution imagery across a wide range of spectral bands to monitor coastal ecosystems and ocean color. SPOC will acquire image data between 433 and 866 nm to monitor 1) coastal wetlands status, 2) estuarine water quality including wetland biophysical characteristics and phytoplankton dynamics, and 3) near-coastal ocean productivity. SPOC shall use multispectral remote sensing techniques to quantify vegetation health, primary productivity, ocean productivity, suspended sediments, and organic matter in coastal regions. The uniqueness of SPOC lies in its payload, a 16 band adjustable multi spectral imager, called SPOC eye. The payload structure for SPOC was designed by Cloudland Instruments and the UGA SSRL SPOC team is actively building and refining the optical structure. Launch in Q4 2019.”
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