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Earth's magnetosphere is vital for today's technologically dependent society. To date, numerous design studies have been conducted and over a dozen science missions have own to study the magnetosphere. However, a majority of these solutions…
CubeSats are small satellites used for scientific experiments because they cost less than full sized satellites. Each CubeSat uses an on-board computer. The on-board computer performs sensor measurements, data processing, and CubeSat…
In recent years, the Moon has emerged as an unparalleled extraterrestrial testbed for advancing cuttingedge technological and scientific research critical to enabling sustained human presence on its surface and supporting future…
Small satellite communications recently entered a period of massive interest driven by the uprising space applications. CubeSats are particularly attractive due to their low development costs which makes them very promising in playing a…
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…
The rapid advancement and miniaturization of spacecraft electronics, sensors, actuators, and power systems have resulted in growing proliferation of small-spacecraft. Coupled with this is the growing number of rocket launches, with…
A key requirement in robotics is the ability to simultaneously self-localize and map a previously unknown environment, relying primarily on onboard sensing and computation. Achieving fully onboard accurate simultaneous localization and…
The Pandora SmallSat is a NASA flight project aimed at studying the atmospheres of exoplanets -- planets orbiting stars outside our Solar System. Pandora will provide the first dataset of simultaneous, multiband (visible and NIR),…
Deciphering the genesis and evolution of the Martian polar caps can provide crucial understanding of Mars' climate system. The growing scientific interest for the exploration of Mars at high latitudes, and the need of minimizing the…
The design of a CubeSat telescope for academic research purposes must balance complicated optical and structural designs with cost to maximize performance in extreme environments. Increasing the CubeSat size (eg. 6U to 12U) will increase…
While the capabilities of autonomous systems have been steadily improving in recent years, these systems still struggle to rapidly explore previously unknown environments without the aid of GPS-assisted navigation. The DARPA Subterranean…
Satellite swarms have recently gained attention in the space industry due to their ability to provide extremely narrow beamwidths at a lower cost than single satellite systems. This paper proposes a concept for a satellite swarm using a…
Pits on the Moon and Mars are intriguing geological formations that have yet to be explored. These geological formations can provide protection from harsh diurnal temperature variations, ionizing radiation, and meteorite impacts. Some have…
The ability to determine the pose of a rover in an inertial frame autonomously is a crucial capability necessary for the next generation of surface rover missions on other planetary bodies. Currently, most on-going rover missions utilize…
Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is a fundamental task for numerous applications such as autonomous navigation and exploration. Despite many SLAM datasets have been released, current SLAM solutions still struggle to have…
Future crewed missions to the Moon will face significant environmental and operational challenges, posing risks to the safety and performance of astronauts navigating its inhospitable surface. Whilst head-up displays (HUDs) have proven…
The StarLight program conceptualizes fast interstellar travel via small wafer satellites (wafersats) that are propelled by directed energy. This process is wildly different from traditional space travel and trades large and slow spacecraft…
Future Moon bases will likely be constructed using resources mined from the surface of the Moon. The difficulty of maintaining a human workforce on the Moon and communications lag with Earth means that mining will need to be conducted using…
Satellite imaging is a critical technology for monitoring and responding to natural disasters such as flooding. Despite the capabilities of modern satellites, there is still much to be desired from the perspective of first response…
We present a modular, full-stack autonomy system for lunar surface navigation and mapping developed for the Lunar Autonomy Challenge. Operating in a GNSS-denied, visually challenging environment, our pipeline integrates semantic…