Related papers: Open-Source CubeSat Solar Panels: Design, Assembly…

A Drag-Free CubeSat mission has been proposed to demonstrate the feasibility of a Gravitational Reference Sensor (GRS) with an optical readout for a 3 units (3U) spacecraft. A purely drag-free object is defined by the absence of all…

We have developed a low-cost off-the-shelf component star sensor (StarSense) for use in minisatellites and CubeSats to determine the attitude of a satellite in orbit. StarSense is an imaging camera with a limiting magnitude of 6.5, which…

We have performed an initial stage conceptual design study for the Deep Interior Scanning CubeSat (DISCUS), a tandem 6U CubeSat carrying a bistatic radar as main payload. DISCUS will be operated either as an independent mission or…

We describe Cal X-1, a SmallSat mission concept to establish X-ray standard candles in the sky, which will enable absolute calibration of the current and future X-ray observatories. It consists of two CubeSats flying in formation, one…

This work investigates the feasibility and design trade-offs for a companion spacecraft, or PaddleSat, to charge a host spacecraft by wirelessly transmitting power using a directional laser system. The primary goal of the PaddleSat is to…

Satellite emulation software is essential for research due to the lack of access to physical testbeds. To be useful, emulators must generate observations that are well-aligned with real-world ones, and they must have acceptable resource…

Historically, materials such as lead, tungsten, and iron have been used in spacecraft to shield scientific detectors from Cosmic Rays. These materials work well when reentry to Earth is not an issue. The typical strategy is to have a…

The recent rise of CubeSat has revolutionized global space explorations, as it offers cost-effective solutions for low-orbit space applications (including climate monitoring, weather measurements, communications, and earth observation). A…

We present here the signal-to-noise (S/N) calculator developed for the Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment (CUTE) mission. CUTE is a 6U CubeSat operating in the near-ultraviolet (NUV) observing exoplanetary transits to study their upper…

Time-series photometry from space in the ultraviolet can be presently done with only a few platforms, none of which is able to provide wide-field long-term high-cadence photometry. We present a concept of UVSat, a twin space telescope which…

Kubernetes has been for a number of years the default cloud orchestrator solution across multiple application and research domains. As such, optimizing the energy efficiency of Kubernetes-deployed workloads is of primary interest towards…

Electrospray thrusters are emerging as a leading propulsion technology for CubeSats, offering high specific impulse ($I_{sp} > 1000$ s) and low power requirements. However, the divergent ion plumes can impinge on spacecraft surfaces,…

PolarLight is a gas pixel X-ray polarimeter mounted on a CubeSat, which was launched into a Sun-synchronous orbit in October 2018. We build a mass model of the whole CubeSat with the Geant4 toolkit to simulate the background induced by the…

We present the on-orbit performance of the Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment ($CUTE$). $CUTE$ is a 6U CubeSat that launched on September 27th, 2021 and is obtaining near-ultraviolet (NUV, 2480 A -- 3306 A) transit spectroscopy of…

CubeSat-based nanosatellites are composed of COTS components and rely on its structure and standardized interfaces. A challenge in the nanosatellites context is to adapt the V\&V (Verification and Validation) process to answer to the…

As miniaturized spacecraft (e.g., cubesats and smallsats) and instrumentation become an increasingly indispensable part of space exploration and scientific investigations, it is important to understand their potential susceptibility to…

HERMES (High Energy Rapid Modular Ensemble of Satellites) is a space-borne mission based on a constellation of six 3U CubeSats flying in a low-Earth orbit, hosting new miniaturized instruments based on a hybrid Silicon Drift…

The recent, rapid advancement in space exploration is thanks to the accelerated miniaturization of electronics components on a spacecraft that is reducing the mass, volume and cost of satellites. Yet, access to space remains a distant dream…

ASTROSAT is an astronomy satellite designed for simultaneous multi-wavelength studies in the Optical/UV and a broad X-ray energy range. With four X-ray instruments and a pair of UV-Optical telescopes, ASTROSAT will provide unprecendented…

Artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous edge computing in space are emerging areas of interest to augment capabilities of nanosatellites, where modern sensors generate orders of magnitude more data than can typically be transmitted to…