Smallsat 2016: NASA Program & Mission Updates
Two three-unit (3U) CubeSats. At about a foot in length and four inches wide, these are similar in design to IceCube and the five selected heliophysics CubeSats. (Credit: NASA)
NASA officials have been providing updates this week on agency programs and missions during the 2016 Small Satellite Conference and the CubeSat Workshop that preceded it. I have pulled together summaries of their presentations drawn from Twitter. Information has come from the following Tweeters:
- Jeff Foust @jeff_foust
- David Hurst @OrbitalDave
- Hanna Steplewska @spacesurfingirl
- Augie Allen @AugieAllen
- RITSpaceExploration @RITSPEX
Enjoy!
PROGRAMS
NASA Education Launch of Nanosats (ELaNa) Program
Garret Skrobot, NASA KSC
- Program launches satellites largely from the International Space Station and as secondary payloads aboard commercial flights
- 3 missions undertaken last year, 6 scheduled for year to come
- ElaNa will fly satellites aboard Venture Class Launch vehicles in 2017 and 2018
- Venture Class launchers include Electron from Rocket Lab, LauncherOne from Virgin Galactic and Alpha from Firefly
- Venture class launchers will help program clear backlog of satellites
Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator Mission
John Marmie, NASA Ames
- NASA Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator focused on maturing technologies using 6U CubeSats
- Missions include testing thrusters from Aerojet Rocketdyne, Busek Company and Tethers Unlimited
- Reviewing bids for 6U CubeSat satellite bus, unsure when award will be made
NASA Cube Quest Challenge
Jim Cockrell, NASA Ames
- Cube Quest Challenge is competition for satellites to fly on SLS/Orion flight in 2018
- Final round will be held publicly at NASA Ames Research Center in Spring 2017
- 3 industry and 5 academic teams in the competition
- Another competitor is in the process of joining the competition
ISS Satellite Deployment
Daniel Newswander, NASA JSC
- International Space Station (ISS) uses Cyclops satellite deployer to launch “geometrically challenged” satellites weighing up to 100 kg
- Officials are considering expanding what Cyclops can deploy
- Cyclops was used to deploy Lonestar satellite, which was an autonomous rendezvous and docking experiment
- Lonestar included a P-Pod deployer that held a CubeSat
MISSIONS & PROJECTS
Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS)
Randy Rose, Southwest Research Institute
- CYGNSS consists of 8 spacecraft set to launch aboard an Orbital ATK Pegasus in November
- CYGNSS would support tropical weather forecasting
- Spacecraft based on 12U CubeSat with addition of a structure to support phased array antennae
- Cyclone forecasting is 50 percent more accurate today than in the 1990’s
- However, meteorologists have not improved their forecasting of the intensity of cyclones
- There are gaps in existing satellite coverage that CYGNSS will help fill
A concept image of the Near-Earth Asteroid Scout mission, one of 11 missions that will be secondary payloads to the first test flight of NASA’s Space Launch System. (Credit: NASA)
NEA Scout
Jared Dervan, NASA JPL
- NEA Scout asteroid flyby mission will launch as secondary payload on SLS/Orion flight in 2018
- Will use solar sail to conduct a flyby of asteroid 1991 VG
- Spacecraft is a 6U CubeSat with 86^m solar sail
BioSentinel Mission
Hugo Sanchez, NASA Ames
- 4U biology radiation mission that will launch on SLS/Orion flight in 2018
- BioSentinel will use spectrometer to measure growth of 3 types of yeast in two different media over 18 months
- Results will be correlated with control group on the ground
- Spacecraft will be deployed at first of five separate times in mission where CubeSats will be released
- Spacecraft will fly through Van Allen radiation belts before passing the moon
Europa CubeSat Mission
Kyle Rankin, New Mexico State University
- 3U CubeSat would fly aboard Europa Clipper in the 2020’s
- 14-day mission after deployment from Europa Clipper spacecraft
- Planetary protection requirements would prohibit CubeSat from touching Europa’s surface
- Planetary protection complicates end of mission planning
- Experiments would include drag measurement and high energy particle detector
- CubeSat would communicate with Europa Clipper, which would relay data back to Earth
- Would try to fly through Europa plumes if they can determine their locations
- CubeSat would operate on 7 watts of power
- Jupiter’s radiation is so severe that no commercial off-the-shelf parts would survive
NASA Glenn 3U CubeSat
Katie Oriti, NASA Glenn
- Center developing 3U CubeSat with 100-watt power system
- Spacecraft presents design and thermal challenges
- Flight planned for 2017
Multidirectional Cosmic Ray Ion Detector for Deep Space CubeSats
John Wrbanek, NASA Glenn
- Development of a multidirectional cosmic ray ion detectors for use on deep-space smallsats
- Particle detectors would fly on planetary science and heliophysics missions
- Favored solution is the use of wide band gap silicon carbide devices
- These devices are robust, radiation hardened and use less power than other options
- Developing a compact, full-field ion detector system (CFIDS) is a future concept
Low-cost Solutions for Small Spacecraft
David McComas, NASA Goddard
- Morpheus lander was the first vehicle to use NASA’s Core Flight System (cFS)
- Main goal is a lifecycle approach to reuse
- cFS is based on more than 20 years of Goddard flight systems
- cFS enable rapids development
- cFS is open source, but NASA has yet to make it readily available for public use
- NASA will launch a cFS website soon (https://coreflightsystem.org)
