Related papers: Refined Astrometry on Board a CubeSat
CubeSats have become a meaningful option for deep-space exploration, but their autonomy must be increased to maximize the science return while limiting the complexity in operations. We present here a solution for an autonomous orbit…
Balloon-borne astronomy offers an attractive option for experiments that require precise pointing and attitude stabilization, due to a large reduction in the atmospheric interference observed by ground-based systems as well as the low-cost…
Detecting anomalous events in satellite telemetry is a critical task in space operations. This task, however, is extremely time-consuming, error-prone and human dependent, thus automated data-driven anomaly detection algorithms have been…
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…
Cubesats present unique opportunities for observational astronomy in the modern era. They are useful in observing difficult-to-access wavelength regions and long-term monitoring of interesting astronomical sources. However, conventional…
The integration of CubeSats with Free Space Optical (FSO) links accelerates a major advancement in high-throughput, low-Earth orbit communication systems. However, CubeSats face challenges such as size, weight, and power (SWaP) limitations,…
The wide availability of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) electronics that can withstand Low Earth Orbit conditions has opened avenue for wide deployment of CubeSats and small-satellites. CubeSats thanks to their low developmental and launch…
Exploration of asteroids and small-bodies can provide valuable insight into the origins of the solar system, into the origins of Earth and the origins of the building blocks of life. However, the low-gravity and unknown surface conditions…
CubeSats are emerging as low-cost tools to perform astronomy, exoplanet searches and earth observation. These satellites can target an object for science observation for weeks on end. This is typically not possible on larger missions where…
In this paper we present HighRes: a laboratory demonstration of a 3U CubeSat with a deployable primary mirror that has the potential of achieving high-resolution imaging for Earth Observation. The system is based on a Cassegrain telescope…
This study presents an autonomous orbit determination system based on crosslink radiometric measurements applied to a future lunar CubeSat mission to clearly highlight its advantages with respect to existing ground-based navigation…
AcubeSAT is an open-source CubeSat mission aiming to explore the effects of microgravity and radiation on eukaryotic cells using a compact microfluidic lab-on-a-chip platform. It is developed by SpaceDot, a volunteer, interdisciplinary…
This paper presents a nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode-based adaptive smooth control methodology for a distributed space telescope demonstration mission. The distributed space telescope has a flexible focal length that corresponds to…
The Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS) is a 6U CubeSat under development to monitor the flaring and chromospheric activity of M dwarfs at near-ultraviolet (NUV) and far-ultraviolet (FUV) wavelengths. The spacecraft hosts two…
We present methodology and mission results from orbit determination of Planet Labs nanosatellites and differential-drag control of their relative motion. Orbit determination (OD) is required on Planet Labs satellites to accurately predict…
This paper presents a mission concept that enables Earth-Mars communications resistant to periods of solar conjunction by using CubeSat satellites equipped with a solar sail. The dynamics of the satellite is modeled separately in the…
Air-bearing platforms for simulating the rotational dynamics of satellites require highly precise ground truth systems. Unfortunately, commercial motion capture systems used for this scope are complex and expensive. This paper shows a novel…
This paper presents a comparative study of the applicability and accuracy of optimal control methods and neural network-based estimators in the context of porkchop plots for preliminary asteroid rendezvous mission design. The scenario…
The CUbesat Solar Polarimeter (CUSP) project is a CubeSat mission orbiting the Earth aimed to measure the linear polarization of solar flares in the hard X-ray band by means of a Compton scattering polarimeter. CUSP will allow the study of…
This paper presents an integrated model-learning predictive control scheme for spacecraft orbit-attitude station-keeping in the vicinity of asteroids. The orbiting probe relies on optical and laser navigation while attitude measurements are…