Pre-conference Workshop

Sunday Session 8: Educational Programs II

Helping Students Reach Space: University Nanosatellite Program Challenges and Lessons Learned
Shivani Patel, Jesse Olson - ATA-Aerospace; Kate Yoshino, Lee Jasper, Jeffrey Ganley, Lauren Hunt – Air Force Research Lab

• Mission management – systems eng concepts and pitfalls
• Personel management – team infrastructure concepts
• Project management – political aspects
• Study across 5000+ students doing CubeSat projects

• What happens when we have a mix of contractor and universities:

  • Tend to give students more responsibility to learn

Mission Management

• Majority of issues in student-led CubeSats projects
  • lie in feasibility studies and concept exploration, hard to get accepted later if too complex
  • Lesson: submitting proposals that are overzealous in order to present proposals with scientific significance makes things complicated, risky and success is less achievable
    • Example: university proposes to completely develop a s/c bus and scientific pld with the same workforce – this can cause problems (conveying requirements and objectives is hard)
    • It’s mostly a payload vs. s/c bus expertise in a team, rarely both. Science vs. tech eng. team
• Limitations in universities:
  • Lack of full time employees
  • Lack of funding
  • Lack of schedule
• Strength
  • Collaborative environment

Personnel management

• Found that this hierarchy normally gives mission success (in following order):
  1. Principal Investigators (PIs)
  2. Program/Project Manager & Chief Engineer
  3. Subsystem leaders
  4. Subsystem workforce
• One project status meeting and one technical meeting per week (nominally).
• Lesson: filling and maintaining the required roles is hard, needs proper documentation and good management
  • Need these roles for team success: the visionary, the doer, the breaker, the healer (latter has high EQ which is needed)
• Limitations:
  • Learning workforce
  • It must be a self-teaching workforce
  • Rapid turnover

• Strengths:
  • Interdisciplinary backgrounds
  • Recruit base is potentially large

Project management

• Lesson: preventing schedule extremes
• Slow is not good, snowball effect. Fast also bad since students are not working full-time!
• Limitations:
  • No FTE’s
  • High rate of turnover
  • General research project politics
• Strengths:
  • Control over intermediate milestones

Link to paper: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/464/

Reliving 24 Years in the next 12 Minutes: A Statistical and Personal History of University-Class Satellites
Michael Swartwout - Saint Louis University

• Student training is at least as important as any other mission objective (should be stated clear in the objectives when doing mission design)

• Three university-class missions

Link to paper: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/465/

HEPTA-Sat Training Program: International Knowledge Transfer Using Hands-on Type CubeSat Education
Masahiko Yamazaki, Taiga Zengo - Nihon University

• Understand functions
• Assemble
• Integration
• Test
• International Hands-on workshop, countries join by decision of UN

Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/466/

Mission Quality Assurance Virtual Training and Certification Using the NASA Academy of Aerospace Quality
Alice Smith, Jeffrey Smith, Alejandro Teran-Somohano - Auburn University

• Course: tutorial on training & certification, quizzes, lessons learned, NASA standards

Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/467/

Sunday Session 9: Upcoming Missions

HaloSat: A Search for Missing Baryons with a CubeSat 
Anna Zajczyk, Philip Kaaret, Donald Kirchner, Daniel LaRocca, William Robison - University of Iowa; Keith Jahoda, Thomas Johnson - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; Dimitra Koutroumpa - Le Laboratoire Atmosphères

• Achieved 0.002 deg pointing accuracy (2 sigma)
• Using Blue Canyon Technologies COTS

Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/471/

MeznSat: A CubeSat for Greenhouse Gases Monitoring and Algal Blooms Prediction
Abdul-Halim Jallad, Zulkifli Aziz, Aisha Allam - American University of Ras Al-Khaimah; Prashanth Marpu, Alexandros Tsoupos – Khalifa University; Abdulla Marar – United Arab Emirates Space Agency

• 3U C/S for monitoring greenhouse gases
• Monitor methane and CO2 in atmosphere over UAE
• SWIR 1000nm—1700 nm, RGB camera
• Monitor red tide??? Not feasible yet. Only greenhouse gases as of now.
• 3 yrs to cover UAE – narrow FoV. Coverage analysis in STK

Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/473/

MarCO: Early Operations of the First CubeSats to Mars
Andrew Klesh, Brian Clement, Cody Colley, John Essmiller, Daniel Forgette, Joel Krajewski, Anne Marinan, Tomas Martin-Mur – NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

• Experienced propulsion system leak
• Early mission beeps achieved
• Comms with DSN
  • 120 MB downlinked to earth
• SDR capability
• Use solar radiation pressure (SRP) to desaturate wheels

Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/474/

Guatemala's Remote Sensing CubeSat - Tools and Approaches to Increase the Probability of Mission Success
Marvin Martínez, Diego González, Diego Rodríguez, Johan Birnie, José Bagur, Ricardo Paz, Emilio Miranda, Fernanda Solórzano - Universidad del Valle de Guatemala

• Multi-spectral Imager (450, 550, 680, 700 nm)
• Gomspace boards
• Also developed self-made CubeSat subsystems
• Developed Risk matrix, FMEA, N-square diagrams

Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/476/

Sunday Session 10: A Look Back - Lessons Learned

On-Orbit Demonstrations of Robust Autonomous Operations on Cubesat
Toshihiro Obata, Shinichi Nakasuka, Yoshihide Aoyanagi, Takeshi Matsumoto - The University of Tokyo; Seiko Shirasaka - Keio University

• Human error most likely cause for disfunctionality
• Autonomous functions (not sequence of events) - feedback loop on what satellite images to how it executes operations
• Commanding/scheduling
• Quality relaxation

Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/479/

Initial Results from the TechnoSat In-Orbit Demonstration Mission
Merlin Barschke, Philipp Werner, Karsten Gordon, Marc Lehmann, Walter Frese, Daniel Noak - Technische Universität Berlin; Ludwig Grunwaldt - German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ); Georg Kirchner - Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW)

• TU Berlin transmits data (payload+housekeeping/TM) all through S-band
• Fluid dynamic actuator
• 2.3 deg/s in one second – 40 mNM

Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/480/

ANDESITE: A Student Built Swarm from Concept to Launch and Beyond 
Jonathan Parham, Maria Kromis, Phillip Teng, Aleks Zosuls, Brian Walsh, Joshua Semeter - Boston University

• FCC license complications lessons learned – start early (they planned for launch in 17 but ends up in end 2018 due to delays with FCC)
• Start early. All the reviews can complicate and delay! NASA MRR.
• Did risk analysis, did some tests took it apart right before launch – so they had to reassemble, do vibrations tests again.
• Simplify radio licensing and clear rules of the road from FCC
• Student graduation and turnover can be debilitating
• Commercial constellations offer a unique opportunity to do science

Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/481/

The CubeSat Radiometer Radio Frequency Interference Technology Validation (CubeRRT) Mission
Christopher Ball, Chi-Chih Chen, Christa McKelvey, Graeme Smith, Mark Andrews, Andrew O'Brien, Landon Garry, Joel T. Johnson - The Ohio State University

• Develop simulation tool to optimize duty cycle
• Should have done more testing before launch
• Should also have had more operations training on ground before actual operations - took a while to learn this
• They should have done additional exploration for comms. Explored options for data downlink.

Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/482/

Lessons Learned from Building the First Chilean Nano-satellite: The SUCHAI Project
Carlos Gonzalez, Camilo Rojas, Alex Becerra, Javier Rojas, Tomas Opazo, Marcos Diaz - University of Chile

• Team:
  • PIs: 1 Marcos Diaz
  • Undergrads: 6
  • Grads: 10
  • Engineers: 5
• 2011-2017 (concept in 2011, started testing in 2015)
• Went from Falcon9 to PSLV
• Resets important (do it weekly)
• Use RGB camera for visual validation of deployment and geo-referencing, enhances orbit knowledge
• Flight Software (open-source)
  • www.github.com/spel-uchile/SUCHAI-Flight-Software
• Lessons learned
  • A versioned agile approach – going from simple to more complex
  • Flight software very helpful
  • Collaboration with HAM radio community
  • Difficult to avoid failures – learn from them and pay attention
  • No better way than to train people than doing it hands-on
  • CubeSat simple as it is can be a great kick off for something “bigger”

Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/483/

Conference

Monday Technical Session 1: The Year in Review

Dellingr: Reliability Lessons Learned from On-Orbit 
Larry Kepko, Luis Santos Soto, Chuck Clagett, Behnam Azimi, Dean Chai, Alan Cudmore, James Marshall, John Lucas - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

• Observed anamolous gyro data (Nov 2017)
• Observed sun pointing inaccuracy
• Reaction wheels started actuating back and forth
• GPS unresponsive (mission on compromise, Dec 2017)
• Flight computer system (FCS) crashed
• Bug in the FCS
• Reconstructed the error on FlatSat
• Reset problems
• Watchdog timer for 4 min between EPS and CPU
• Uncontrolled spin
• Tested bdotapp in “42” ADCS simulator

Link: http://bit.ly/DellingrPaper2018

Demonstration in Space of a Smart Hyperspectral Imager for Nanosatellites
Marco Esposito, Chris van Dijk, Nathan Vercruyssen, Simon Silvio Conticello, Pierluigi Foglia Manzillo, Rick Koeleman - cosine measurement systems; Bavo Delauré, Iskander Benhadj - VITO NV

• not presented, please see paper under (important!)

Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4069&context=smallsat

Tuesday Technical Session 3: Advanced Technologies 1

Test and Development of Prototype 1000W X-band Microwave Solid-State Power Amplifier for Small SAR Satellite
Hiromi Watanabe - Keio University; Koji Tanaka, Koichi Ijichi, Hirobumi Saito - Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency; Seiko Shirasaka - Keio University

• Didn't catch the presentation, please read if interested in SAR

Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/267/

One-year Lunar Calibration Result of Hodoyoshi-1, Moon as an Ideal Target for Small Satellite Radiometric Calibration
Toru Kouyama, Ryosuke Nakamura - National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology; Soushi Kato – Remote Sensing Technology Center of Japan; Naoki Miyashita - Axelspace Corporation

• Didn't catch the presentation, but relevant

Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/268/

Tuesday Technical Session 4: Delivering Mission Success

Improving Mission Success of CubeSats
Catherine Venturini, Barbara Braun, David Hinkley - The Aerospace Corporation; Greg Berg - formerly at The Boeing Company

• Didn't catch the presentation, but relevant

Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4085&context=smallsat

Tuesday Technical Session 5: Science / Mission Payloads 1

Design Principles for Smallsat SARs
Anthony Freeman – NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

• Conventional design:
  • Minimze along-track spatial resolution
  • Size antenna to give widest possible ambiguity-free swath
  • Maximize SNR
• Non-conventional design (for CubeSat):
  • Don’t design for min spatial resolution and max antenna width
  • Minimize the antenna length
  • Allow for Pulse Repetition Frequency to be below Doppler Bandwidth
  • PSF 80% of Doppler BW
  • Scientists want 10 m resolution. This is acceptable (and also wide swath)
  • S/C mass driven by antenna mass
  • Don’t use phased arrays, mictrostrip patches instead
  • Low number of acquisition modes – low mass
  • Add polarization diversity only when needed to meet the majority of sys requirements
• Their specs:
  • Antenna dimensions 1.7m x 0.3 m
  • One-time per orbit 3 min
  • Beware of thermal overload

Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/280/

A Highly Miniaturized Satellite Payload Based on a Spatial Heterodyne Spectrometer for the Detection of Faint Emissions in the Atmosphere
Martin Kaufmann, Michael Deiml, Jilin Liu, Qiuyu Chen, Oliver Wroblowski, Martin Riese - Research Centre Jülich; Friedhelm Olschewski, Ralf Koppmann - University of Wuppertal

• Making smaller, then lower spatial resolution – light throughput (register less photons)
• SNR issues (too low)
• If we want to miniaturize payloads, careful!
• SHS design
• Assembly requires um-tolerances band/or interferometric control
• Underestimated the need for calibration and assembly

Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/283/

Microsats and Moby Dick: Microsatellite Support to Whale Science and Conservation
Matt Bille, Rachel Dendiu, Kirk Borne, Laurie Baker, Steve Brune, Ian Byrnes, Chris Round – Booz Allen Hamilton

• Interesting but not relevant

Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/286/

Wednesday Session 7: Science / Mission Payloads II

Engineering-Model Results of X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar for Small Satellite and its Application to Constellation Mission
Hirobumi Saito, Prilando Akbar, Koji Tanaka, Koichi Ijichi, Makoto Mita - Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency; Budhaditya Pyne, Tomoki Kaneko, Toshihiro Obata - The University of Tokyo

• Didn't catch this but read if interested in SAR

Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/293/

Wednesday Technical Session 8: Frank J. Redd Student Competition

Improved Model for Low Cost Sun Sensor Attitude Filtering
Nicholas DiGregorio - University at Buffalo

• Didn't catch this but interesting

Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/302/

Wednesday Technical Session 9: Space Access

• Nothing interesting. I left.

Wednesday Technical Session 10: Ground Systems

• Didn't have time. But would be worth going to.
• See papers in: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/TPS10-2018/
• SDR: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/314/
• SatNOGS: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/313/

Others (that I didn't make it to on Saturday Sessions):

• Statistical Analysis of CubeSat Mission Failure. Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/428/
• Characterizing COTS IMU Performance in High Vacuum. Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/430/
• ADCS at Scale: Calibrating and Monitoring the Dove Constellation. Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/427/
• Reliable, Fast, and Flexible: A Thermal Modeling Approach for Small Satellites. Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/426/
• Frequency and Legal Regulations Surrounding a Ground Station Network. Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/425/

• Adapting Low-Cost Multispectral Drone Technology to CubeSats for Environmental Monitoring and Management: Harmful Algal Bloom Satellite-1 (HABSat-1). Link: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/438/