Cubesat Activities at ACSER

Andrew Dempster

Cubesat Activities at ACSER

Launching Cubesats for and from Australia, April 2017 2

• Launched 22 November 2010 • Funded 29 March 2011

ACSER


Vision: To provide national leadership for space engineering research

Purpose: To develop space capabilities relevant to Australia’s needs through research, innovation and education


• Established strengths – GNSS (terrestrial),

positioning – GNSS (space) – Cubesat engineering,

support – Garada

• Developing strengths – Off-earth mining – Robust space electronics – GNSS remote sensing – Sensors (e.g. ionosphere)

• “Potential” – structures (inc 3D printing), microgravity

“What we do”

Launching Cubesats for and from Australia, April 2017

SAR Formation Flying: Garada • 2011-2013, about $10M • Partners: Astrium, BAE

Systems, Delft/Curtin, General Dynamics

• Three main activities: – Phase A SAR formation

flying system design – L1/ E1/ L5/ E5 GNSS

receiver – GNSS reflectometry


Garada Satellite


• The initial constellations considered were cubesats – radar extremely difficult

• GNSS receiver was made in cubesat format

• Reflectometry work led to later cubesat application

Cubesats in Garada?


• Collaborative laboratory engaging the satellite navigation activity in EET and CVEN: the satellite navigation and positioning (SNAP) lab.

SNAP Lab


• Receiver design/ signal processing: – Interference – New signals – Receiver architectures – Space-based platforms – Reflectometry – Radio occultation – Integration with other sensors

GNSS Research


Positioning and Navigation


GNSS receivers: space


Garada in Orbit

12

East(cm) North(cm) Up(cm)

MEAN 0.01 0.01 -0.01

Std(1 sigma) 0.8 0.8 3.2


• Built for UNSW, USyd

QB50 Cubesats


• LP140100328 – Rapid recovery from Radiation-induced Errors in

Reconfigurable Hardware – $232,000 – Prof Andrew Dempster, Dr Ediz Cetin, Dr Oliver

Diessel, Mr Kevin Parkinson • DP150103866

– Designing Radiation-Tolerant Reconfigurable Systems for Space

– $340,300 – Parameswaran, Prof Sridevan; Dempster, Prof

Andrew G; Diessel, Dr Oliver F; Cetin, Dr Ediz; Ambrose, Dr Jude A

Robust Space Electronics


• Reconfigurable systems that rapidly recover from radiation-induced errors.

• FPGAs susceptible to SEUs – datapath and configuration memory (SRAM).

• Will be demonstrated and evaluated on RUSH UNSW-EC0 CubeSat payload

Robust Space Electronics …


• 2U CubeSat, 2.0kg • GOMSpace Satellite bus,

deployable solar arrays • QB50 payload: Ion Neutral

Spectrometer (INMS) • UNSW/NICTA Payloads:

–Namuru v3.2 space GPS –seL4 microkernal board –FPGA based operation system

board –3D printed PEAK polymer satellite

structure • Launch: April 2015 into Sun-

synchronous 380km Orbit • Expected Lifetime: 4-8 months

UNSW QB50 Educational Cubesat 0 (EC0)


QB50 team First Name Last Name Organisation Position System Responsibility

Andrew Dempster UNSW Academic Advisor (Principle Investigator - GPS) System

Elias Aboutanios UNSW Academic Advisor (Principle Investigator - Comms) System, Communications, OBC, Legal

Barnaby Osborne UNSW Researcher (Project Manager)(Payload manager - Structures)(Principle Investigator - Structures) System, OBC, structures

Gernot Heiser NICTA (Principle Investigator - seL4bit) SeL4bit Thai Loi UNSW Professional advisor Legal Naomi Tsafnat UNSW Academic Advisor Structure

Ediz Cetin UNSW Researcher (Payload Manager - RUSH) (Principle Investigator - RUSH) RUSH

Oliver Diessel UNSW Academic Advisor (Principle Investigator) RUSH Thomas Fisk UNSW Undergraduate RUSH Eamonn Glennon UNSW Researcher (Payload Manager) Namuru Joon Wayn UNSW Researcher Namuru Kevin Parkinson General Dynamics Professional advisor RUSH, Namuru Scott O'Brien UNSW PhD Student Namuru Alexander Kroh NICTA Researcher (Payload Manager) SeL4bit Yanyan Shen NICTA PhD Student SeL4bit Anna Lyons NICTA PhD Student SeL4bit David Morrison NICTA Intern SeL4bit Sanat Biswas UNSW PhD Student ADC BLUEsat Kids UNSW Undergraduate Ground Station Daniel Sherratt UNSW Undergraduate OBC Tim Broadbent UNSW Undergraduate ADC Yiwei Han UNSW Undergraduate OBC John Lam UNSW Undergraduate OBC Karishma Inamdar ISU Graduate Reflectometry Danijela Stupar ISU Graduate Radio Occultation Arina Wan Mohd Nor UNSW Undergraduate Communications Fazrina Kamarudzaman UNSW Undergraduate Orbit Jendi Kepple UNSW PhD Student Structure Henry Kuo UNSW Undergraduate Structure Chris Warren UNSW Undergraduate Structure Chun Kem UNSW Undergraduate RUSH Lily Qaio UNSW Researcher ADC Javier Gavilanes N/A Graduate Namuru Andi Cheng UNSW/NICTA Undergraduate SeL4bit Lucas Paixao NICTA Undergraduate SeL4bit

Jannick Habets TU Delft Undergraduate System, Power, Communications Anne Gwynne Robson UNSW Undergraduate Operations Thien Nguyen UNSW Undergraduate Ground Station


• Formation Flying cubesats

• $260k contract with DSTO via BAE Systems Namuru V3.2: space-qualified L1 GPS

Biarri


• Aircraft and equipment for conducting the experiments GNSS Reflectometry

19

Aircraft Software receiver & LiDAR equipment

Zenith-looking RHCP antenna Nadir-looking LHCP antenna Low noise amplifier


Reflectometry

Ground tracks reflections from 7 GPS satellites to UNSW aircraft receiver


• Inter-school: – Electrical – Mining – Mechanical – Computing – Civil – Photovoltaics

The UNSW Off-Earth Mining Initiative • Inter-faculty:

– Engineering – Science – Business – Law – Arts and Humanities

• Inter-university: – UNSW – Usyd – UWS – Flinders – Melbourne


Off-earth Mining Forums

Next: Sep 2017


Research Questions Research Questions Missions Which asteroids to mine? What to mine? (exploration, resource modelling) Optimising trajectories for multiple asteroid missions Fractionated spacecraft/ swarms Infrastructure: Fuel depot / distributions to satellites Which resources are running out: map against which are available via OEM. Rare earth, Indium?

Cost of return: if resources are brought back to earth, how is it done? What vehicles are used? Spacecraft Small propulsion systems for cubesats Ion thrusters powered by photovoltaics Telescopes for prospecting Positioning and Attitude Self organised swarms Use of virtual reality Deep space communications On-board power systems Robotics –automation issues Robotics – on-orbit assembly

Mining Technology How to reach/ descend/ land/ anchor/ excavate/ contain/ examine/ ascend/ return. Drone sensors – on-board processing Drone sensors – data analytics/ decision making Drone sensors – space modifications Asteroid grand challenge – what crowd-sourcing is already happening, how can it be exploited and what else could be done?

Which terrestrial exploration (prospecting) instruments can be modified for use in space? Which terrestrial mining method can be used or modified for OEM? Simulation – modify existing UNSW mine simulators for OEM Rock breakage technologies: Drilling and Blasting; Rock Cutting; Laser Cutting; or Novel techniques Resource Mapping: Geophysics; Sampling; etc. Microgravity geology Space biomining Soil simulants Extracting water from icy soil Energy from mining – creating fuel, making solar cells? In-situ resource utilization (ISRU): 3D printing, sintering Weighing material in space

Environment Clean mining Other uses of resources : waste management, infrastructure Development of critical insights (risk, uncertainty, sensitivity) into OEM wrt environmental/ social/ ethical / religious/ traditional / cultural / colonial / philosophical/ legal/ diplomatic / political/ economic / financial dimensions. Other contexts: earth’s shortages of commodities, employment / skills requirements, the aspirational effect of space, societal feedbacks. What would the impacts be on asteroids and Mars? What are the water needs / How is waste handled/ Should bacteria be used / or nanotech / Is uranium an issue? How would the Earth’s atmosphere be affected by excess traffic (e.g. effects of NOx on ozone layer)? Economics Funding it – venture capital or government? Tax-right-off or royalties? Crowd funding? Supply and demand effects on earth’s markets if returned. Financial and Technical Modelling of the missions Creating a market in space for mined products Law How to rewrite the treaties to allow economic expansion?


• Asteroid navigation • Net present value of asteroid missions • Robotics mission architectures • Resource modelling • Seismic exploration • Extraction methods • Satellite swarm interactions with asteroids • Microbial resource extraction

Current PhD Topics


SMiLE Nanoracks ISS experiment

GEM-XN Gagarin Educational

Microgravity eXperiment

Step motor Test chamber

Optics Syringe

• 1U Nanoracks Experiment, 1.0kg • Investigating fluid separation/management in microgravity

• Technology demonstrator for next generation microgravity experiment (GEM-Xs)

• Launch: From April 2014 to ISS via Space-X Dragon

• Lifetime: 1 week autonomous operation


• Partners: – UNSW, USyd, Saber Astronautics, Launchbox

• Space Angels Network • Incorporated 2014

Delta-V Space Business Accelerator


• s

Balloons


• Open: – GNSS Vulnerability, March 2011 – Synthetic Aperture Radar, Dec 2011 – Disaster Management, Dec 2011 – 6U Cubesats, May 2012 – GNSS Remote Sensing, Dec 2012 – Off-earth mining, Feb 2013 – Roadmap to Australian SAR, Oct 2013 – Australian Space Industry Forum, Nov 2013 – GNSS Vulnerability, Dec 2013 – GNSS Futures, July 2014 – Launching cubesats from and for Australia, Apr 15 – Off-earth mining 2, Nov 2015 – IGNSS Conference Dec 2016 – Cubesat Workshop Apr 2017 – OEMF3 Sep 2017 – IGNSS Feb 2018

• Internal: – Demo Payloads, June 2011, March 2012 – Swarm Satellites, July 2011 – System Engineering, August 2011 – UAVs, June 2012 – QB50, Nov 2013 – Off-earth mining opportunities, July 2014 – Cubesat roadmap Dec 2016

Workshops


• Awarded June 2011 • Commencing S2 2013 • 2-year Masters of Engineering Science (Ext) in Satellite Systems Engineering • Bluesat launch • Partners: Thales,

Optus, Institut Supérieur de l’Aéronautique et de l’Espace (ISAE)

A Comprehensive Tertiary Education Program in Satellite Systems Engineering


• Year-long project – 12 UOC option, only technical

project (2x6UOC) – 24 UOC option, technical

plus management (2x12UOC) • Cubesat based • Student teams propose, design

and build payload, or subsystems • Integrate and test into satellite

platform • Space Systems Laboratory

The Practical Project


• BLUEsat included as part of the Warrawal project – Funding – Guidance – Deadline

• BLUEsat baseline established • PDR and CDR conducted (with

oversight by TAS) • Satellite completed and

project wrapped up

BLUEsat


• Working with schools on STEM initiatives • ARC applications

– Synthesising Antenna Apertures in Space – Satellite Innovation Laboratory – Training Centre for CubeSats, UAVs, and

Their Applications • GNSS remote sensing

New Initiatives


The End

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Cubesat Activities at ACSER