Title :
CubeSat design for LEO-based Earth science missions
Author :
Waydo, Stephen ; Henry, Daniel ; Campbell, Mark
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Aeronaut. & Astronaut., Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Abstract :
The 2001 University of Washington Space Design class designed and developed a CubeSat platform to accomplish science objectives related to ionospheric modeling. Small satellites (between 1 and 15 kg) show great promise as a low-cost option to perform limited LEO science missions. This paper describes a CubeSat bus that supports two mission architectures based on two instrument packages. Both architectures involve multiple CubeSats separated from each other to gather spatially and temporally distributed data. The first is a combined plasma impedance probe/DC probe system on two satellites, separated by a tether. The second is two separate CubeSats that perform GPS scintillation measurements. In addition to the common bus structure, unique design traits (such as tethered gravity gradient control) and extensive hardware and software prototyping are discussed in the paper.
Keywords :
Global Positioning System; aerospace instrumentation; artificial satellites; attitude control; ionospheric measuring apparatus; plasma probes; scintillation; 1 to 15 kg; CubeSat bus; CubeSat design; CubeSat platform; GPS scintillation measurements; LEO-based Earth science missions; attitude control subsystem; combined plasma impedance probe/DC probe system; hardware prototyping; instrument packages; ionospheric modeling; mission architectures; software prototyping; tethered gravity gradient control; tethered satellites; Geoscience; Global Positioning System; Impedance; Instruments; Low earth orbit satellites; Packaging; Performance evaluation; Plasma applications; Plasma measurements; Probes;
Conference_Titel :
Aerospace Conference Proceedings, 2002. IEEE
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-7231-X
DOI :
10.1109/AERO.2002.1036863
