Lecturer: Chad Fish (Utah State University) Date: 2015-06-25 10:30 Place: Aniara. NB: 10:30
Making Every Gram Count - Big Measurements from Tiny Platforms
Chad Fish (Center for Space Engineering, Utah State University, USA)
Abstract
The most significant advances in Earth, solar, and space physics over the next decades will originate from new, system-level observational techniques. The most promising technique to still be fully developed and exploited requires conducting multi-point or distributed constellation-based observations. This system-level observational approach is required to understand the “big picture†coupling between
disparate regions such as the solar-wind, magnetosphere, ionosphere, upper atmosphere, land, and ocean. The national research council, NASA science mission directorate, and the larger heliophysics community have repeatedly identified the pressing need for multipoint scientific investigations to be implemented via satellite constellations. However, the costs to date of these and other similar proposed constellations
have been prohibitive given the “large satellite†architectures and the multiple launch vehicles required for implementing the constellations.
Financially sustainable development and deployment of multi-spacecraft constellations can only be achieved through the use of small spacecraft that allow for multiple hostings per launch vehicle. The revolution in commercial mobile and other battery powered consumer technology has helped enable researchers in recent years to build and fly very small yet capable satellites, principally CubeSats. A majority of the CubeSat activity and development to date has come from international academia and the amateur radio satellite community, but several of the typical large-satellite vendors have developed CubeSats as well. Recent government-sponsored CubeSat initiatives, such as NSF CubeSat Space Weather, NASA Office of Chief Technologist Edison and CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) Educational Launch of Nanosatellites Educational Launch of Nano-satellites (ELaNa), and the ESA QB50 programs have spurred the development of very proficient miniature space sensors and technologies that enable technology demonstration, space and earth science research, and operational CubeSat based missions. In this paper we will review a number of the small, low cost sensor and instrumentation technologies that have been developed to date as part of the CubeSat movement and examine how these new CubeSat based technologies are helping us do more with less.
Created 2015-06-24 15:14:33 by Rick McGregor Last changed 2015-06-24 15:16:30 by Rick McGregor
