MarCO: Interplanetary Mission Development on a CubeSat Scale

Schoolcraft, Joshua; Klesh, Andrew T.; Werne, Thomas A.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-51941-8_10

Cited by 35 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Another line of research is the development of hardware platforms to realize and test swarm architectures. With the advent of subsystem technology for miniature spacecraft such as CubeSats [8,16,39], the feasibility of swarm architecture-based missions is rapidly increasing. Currently, platforms such as Chipsats from Cornell [40], SunCube FemtoSats from the University of Arizona [41,42] and silicon wafer integrated Femtosats from JPL [43,44] are being researched as hardware platforms for swarm-based space exploration.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Attitude Control of Spacecraft Swarms for Visual Mapping of Planetary Bodies

Nallapu

Thangavelautham

2019

2019 IEEE Aerospace Conference

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Planetary bodies such as asteroids, comets, and planetary moons are high-value science targets as they hold important information about the formation and evolution of our solar system. However, due to their low-gravity, variable sizes and shapes, dedicated orbiting spacecraft missions around these target bodies is difficult. Therefore, many planetary bodies are observed during flyby encounters, and consequently, the mapping coverage of the target body is limited. In this work, we propose the use of a spacecraft swarm to provide complete surface maps of a planetary body during a close encounter flyby. With the advancement of low-cost spacecraft technology, such a swarm can be realized by using multiple miniature spacecraft. The design of a swarm mission is a complex multi-disciplinary problem. To get started, we propose the Integrated Design Engineering & Automation of Swarms (IDEAS) software. In this work, we will introduce the development of the Automated Swarm Designer module of the software. The Automated Swarm Designer module will use evolutionary algorithms to optimize the design of swarms. The designed swarm will use 2 attitude control strategies to map the surface of a target body, namely: Nadir Pointing (NP), and Field of View Sweeping (FoV Sweeping). In the former strategy, the spacecraft are commanded to passively observe the sub-satellite point on the target body whenever the target is in the field of view of the individual spacecraft. This strategy is used when the observing instrument on board the spacecraft is large enough to capture the target from the desired encounter distance. In case the instrument is not large enough, then the spacecraft will have to maneuver their field of view to improve the coverage. The Field of View Sweeping strategy describes one such maneuver to improve coverage. In this strategy, the spacecraft in the swarm are commanded to sweep their fields of view about their principal axis normal to the swarm plane.The current work addresses different aspects of the swarm design problem. First, the coverage problem is addressed, and the parameters: instrument size, and target flyby distance are determined. Following this, the modeling of the swarm is described, where the individual spacecraft are arranged to define a circular plane around the target body during the encounter. Then the encounter trajectories of the spacecraft swarm are modeled. Here a Newton-Raphson iterative scheme using the state transition matrix of the dynamics is proposed for the entire swarm, which finds the trajectories between the desired starting points and destination points of the spacecraft within a specified flyby duration. Following this, the two proposed attitude control strategies are then described as they occur on these flyby trajectories. Then the design of these swarms is presented using as 2 optimization problems. The proposed strategies are used to develop a numerical simulator which will serve as the Automated Swarm Designer module of IDEAS for visual mapping missions. Finally, the simulator d...

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, there is a strong motivation to search for better strategies to explore small bodies through flyby observations. Currently, miniature spacecraft of mass less than 50 kg are being developed as platforms to explore deep space [8,9]. The total mission cost of these spacecraft is significantly less than their large competitors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitude Control of Spacecraft Swarms for Visual Mapping of Planetary Bodies

Nallapu

Thangavelautham

2019

2019 IEEE Aerospace Conference

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“…The growing interest in the development of highly capable nanosatellites for a wide range of scientific missions [1][2][3][4][5] demands a substantial increase of the traditionally low success rate of this kind of miniaturized platforms, which were originally conceived for educational or technological demonstration purposes. Among the causes for their low success rate, the limited ground verification process, especially at sub-system and system levels, is a relevant one, often originating due to schedule and budget constraints.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Dynamic Testbed for Nanosatellites Attitude Verification

et al. 2020

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To enable a reliable verification of attitude determination and control systems for nanosatellites, the environment of low Earth orbits with almost disturbance-free rotational dynamics must be simulated. This work describes the design solutions adopted for developing a dynamic nanosatellite attitude simulator testbed at the University of Bologna. The facility integrates several subsystems, including: (i) an air-bearing three degree of freedom platform, with automatic balancing system, (ii) a Helmholtz cage for geomagnetic field simulation, (iii) a Sun simulator, and (iv) a metrology vision system for ground-truth attitude generation. Apart from the commercial off-the-shelf Helmholtz cage, the other subsystems required substantial development efforts. The main purpose of this manuscript is to offer some cost-effective solutions for their in-house development, and to show through experimental verification that adequate performances can be achieved. The proposed approach may thus be preferred to the procurement of turn-key solutions, when required by budget constraints. The main outcome of the commissioning phase of the facility are: a residual disturbance torque affecting the air bearing platform of less than 5 × 10 −5 Nm, an attitude determination rms accuracy of the vision system of 10 arcmin, and divergence of the Sun simulator light beam of less than 0.5 • in a 35 cm diameter area.

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“…CubeSats are now used in a variety of missions including science and Earth observation, technological demonstrations, communication networks, and interplanetary exploration both as support for bigger spacecraft and as stand-alone platforms. They are able to operate in unprecedented architectures which would not be feasible using only bigger satellites, e.g., constellations of nanosatellites in Low Earth Orbit [2][3][4][5][6][7][8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Validation of a Test Platform to Qualify Miniaturized Electric Propulsion Systems

Stesina

2019

Aerospace

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Miniaturized electric propulsion systems are one of the main technologies that could increase interest in CubeSats for future space missions. However, the integration of miniaturized propulsion systems in modern CubeSat platforms presents some issues due to the mutual interactions in terms of power consumption, chemical contamination and generated thermal and electro-magnetic environments. The present paper deals with the validation of a flexible test platform to assess the interaction of propulsion systems with CubeSat-technologies from mechanical, electrical, magnetic, and chemical perspectives. The test platform is a 6U CubeSat hosting an electric propulsion system and able to manage a variety of electric propulsion systems. The platform can regulate and distribute electric power (up to 60 W), exchange data according to several protocols (e.g., CAN bus, UART, I2C, SPI), and provide different mechanical layouts in 4U box completely dedicated to the propulsion system. Moreover, the data gathered by the onboard sensors are combined with the data from external devices and tools providing unprecedented information about the mutual behavior of a CubeSat platform and an electric propulsion system.

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MarCO: Interplanetary Mission Development on a CubeSat Scale

Cited by 35 publications

References 2 publications

Attitude Control of Spacecraft Swarms for Visual Mapping of Planetary Bodies

Attitude Control of Spacecraft Swarms for Visual Mapping of Planetary Bodies

A Dynamic Testbed for Nanosatellites Attitude Verification

Validation of a Test Platform to Qualify Miniaturized Electric Propulsion Systems

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