Related papers: Optical communication on CubeSats - Enabling the n…
Optical navigation on a CubeSat must rely on the best extraction of the directions of some beacons from on-board images. We present an experiment on OPS-SAT, a CubeSat of the European Space Agency (ESA), that will characterize an onboard…
Seventy-five billion low-mass stars in our galaxy host at least one small planet in their habitable zone (HZ). The stellar ultraviolet (UV) radiation received by the planets is strong and highly variable, and has consequences for…
The undergraduate-led Polarization-modUlated Laser Satellite Experiment (PULSE-A) at the University of Chicago seeks to demonstrate the feasibility of circular polarization shift keyed satellite-to-ground laser communication. PULSE-A's…
Autonomous navigation is one of the main enabling technologies for future space missions. While conventional spacecraft are navigated through ground stations, their employment for deep-space CubeSats yields costs comparable to those of the…
Satellites are the backbone of several mission-critical services that enable our modern society to function, for example, GPS. For years, satellites were assumed to be secure because of their indecipherable architectures and the reliance on…
Astronomical observations in the X-ray band are subject to atmospheric attenuation and have to be performed in the space. CubeSats offer a cost effective means for space-based X-ray astrophysics but allow only limited mass and volume. In…
The interest in returning to the Moon for research and exploration has increased as new tipping point technologies are providing the possibility to do so. One of these initiatives is the Artemis program by NASA, which plans to return humans…
Optical communication systems have come through five orders of magnitude improvement in data rate over the last three decades. The increased demand in data traffic and the limited optoelectronic component bandwidths have led to…
With the significant advancements in optical computing platforms recently capable of performing various primitive operations, a seamless integration of optical computing into very fabric of optical communication links is envisioned, paving…
Microcombs, optical frequency combs generated by nonlinear integrated micro-cavity resonators, have the potential to offer the full capability of their benchtop comb based counterparts, but in an integrated footprint. They have enabled…
Modulating retroreflectors (MRRs) offer a promising pathway to low-complexity and energy efficient asymmetric optical inter-satellite link (OISL) for small spacecrafts, such as CubeSats. In this paper, we develop a unified statistical…
Drones provide a versatile platform for remote sensing and atmospheric studies. However, strict payload mass limits and intense vibrations have proven obstacles to adoption for astronomy. We present a concept for system-level testing of a…
As the commercial space economy expands, existing ground-based infrastructure faces severe bottlenecks in supporting the data-intensive continuous connectivity needs of next-generation "space users," including CubeSats, space data centers,…
HERMES (High Energy Rapid Modular Ensemble of Satellites) Technological and Scientific pathfinder is a space borne mission based on a LEO constellation of nano-satellites. The 3U CubeSat buses host new miniaturized detectors to probe the…
CubeSat satellites are small cube-shaped space platforms that are very popular among academic, research and start-up communities mostly due to their reduced mission costs and short development time. This comes with an easy access to space,…
The searches for other life and for intelligence are fundamental problems that science faces today. Most searches so far have been focused on radio, but optical laser communication is an alternative, well suited for a ground-based…
Scientific communities naturally tend to organize around data ecosystems created by the combination of their observational devices, their data repositories, and the workflows essential to carry their research from observation to discovery.…
CubeSats offer a flexible and low-cost option to increase the scientific and technological return of small-body exploration missions. ESA's Hera mission, the European component of the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA)…
One of the greatest challenge facing current space weather monitoring operations is forecasting the arrival of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs) within their Earth-Sun propagation timescales. Current…
The "Airships: A New Horizon for Science" study at the Keck Institute for Space Studies investigated the potential of a variety of airships currently operable or under development to serve as observatories and science instrumentation…