Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “SmallSat”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 325 records · Page 18
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Tropical Convection Through the Lens of the INCUS Mission

The overarching goal of the recently selected NASA INvestigation of Convective UpdraftS (INCUS) mission is to enhance our understanding of why, when and where tropical convective storms form, and why only some of these storms produce extreme weather. Convective storms provide an important pathway for the transport of air and water between Earth’s surface and the upper troposphere. This vertical transport of air and water, often referred to as convective mass flux (CMF), plays a critical role in Earth’s weather and climate system through its impacts on microphysical and precipitation rates, detrainment and upper tropospheric moistening, high cloud feedbacks, and the large-scale circulation. Potential changes to the CMF as a function of the local environment or with changing climates may also have significant implications for severe weather such as flood-producing rainfall, damaging hail and lightning. In spite of the critical role of this vertical transport of water and air, representation of CMF remains a major source of error in weather and climate models, thereby limiting our ability to accurately predict convective storms and their impacts. The tropics-wide observations from INCUS will enhance our understanding of tropical convective storm processes and will provide guidance for representing these processes in numerical models across scales. INCUS is comprised of three SmallSat platforms each carrying a RainCube-heritage Ka-band 7-beam scanning radar. The satellite platforms will be 30 and 90 seconds apart, thus providing three time intervals (30, 90 and 120 seconds) over which observations will be made. INCUS will investigate CMF using a novel time-differenced radar reflectivity profile approach. In addition to the Ka-band radar, a single TEMPEST-D-heritage cross-track-scanning passive microwave radiometer will be housed on the middle SmallSat. The radiometer will provide extensive storm context for the radar observations, as well as observations of the convective anvils. The combination of the radars and radiometer on INCUS will deliver unprecedented three-dimensional views of tropical convective storms. INCUS is the first systematic investigation of the rapidly evolving CMF within tropical convective storms, the observations of which are expected to significantly enhance both our understanding and prediction of storm structure, their dynamics and microphysical processes, and the ways in which these evolve over storm lifetimes. This presentation will highlight the observational capabilities and scientific approach of the INCUS mission.

Susan C. van den Heever↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

The Impact of Assimilating Large Volumes of GNSS Radio Occultation Observations from Spire’s Commercial Constellation into NASA’s Global Earth Observing System

The upcoming retrospective analysis for the 21st century (R21C) reanalysis product from NASA will include the full dataset of GNSS Radio Occultation (RO) observations collected by Spire with their constellation of smallsats. The Spire RO dataset, which was purchased by NASA for its Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition (CSDA) archive, has global coverage and includes approximately 6 thousand RO profiles per day during 2019 increasing to nearly 20 thousand in 2022-2023. This more than doubles the volume of RO profiles from all other routinely assimilated RO missions combined during 2023. The increase in the number of RO profiles available is particularly important in the extratropics as the next largest RO constellation, the state-of-the-science Formosa Satellite Mission 7 (FORMOSAT-7)/Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate (COSMIC-2) mission (hereafter COSMIC-2), is focused on the Tropics and only provides approximately 4 thousand RO profiles per day. The large number of observations in the Spire RO dataset have great potential to improve analyses and forecasts of the Earth’s atmosphere produced by numerical weather prediction systems. Their impact is assessed through numerical experiments using NASA’s Global Earth Observing System (GEOS) Atmospheric Data Assimilation System (ADAS) with and without the observations from the COSMIC-2 mission. The ability of the Spire RO observations to make up for the omission of the RO observations from COSMIC-2 is directly assessed over the tropics and the impact of Spire over the extratropics is compared to that of the available RO missions that sample over this region. Finally, the quality of the Spire RO observations is compared to that of the routinely assimilated RO missions using Forecast Sensitivity-based Observation Impact (FSOI).

Michael J. Murphy, Jr.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

The Impact of Assimilating Large Volumes of GNSS Radio Occultation Observations from Spire’s Commercial Constellation into NASA’s GEOS

The upcoming retrospective analysis for the 21st century (R21C) reanalysis product from NASA will include the full dataset of GNSS Radio Occultation (RO) observations collected by Spire with their constellation of smallsats. The Spire RO dataset, which was purchased by NASA for its Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition (CSDA) archive, has global coverage and includes approximately 6 thousand RO profiles per day during 2019 increasing to nearly 20 thousand in 2022-2023. This more than doubles the volume of RO profiles from all other routinely assimilated RO missions combined during 2023. The increase in the number of RO profiles available is particularly important in the extratropics as the next largest RO constellation, the state-of-the-science Formosa Satellite Mission 7 (FORMOSAT-7)/Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate (COSMIC-2) mission (hereafter COSMIC-2), is focused on the Tropics and only provides approximately 4 thousand RO profiles per day. The large number of observations in the Spire RO dataset have great potential to improve analyses and forecasts of the Earth’s atmosphere produced by numerical weather prediction systems. Their impact is assessed through numerical experiments using NASA’s Global Earth Observing System (GEOS) Atmospheric Data Assimilation System (ADAS) with and without the observations from the COSMIC-2 mission. The ability of the Spire RO observations to make up for the omission of the RO observations from COSMIC-2 is directly assessed over the tropics and the impact of Spire over the extratropics is compared to that of the available RO missions that sample over this region. Finally, the quality of the Spire RO observations is compared to that of the routinely assimilated RO missions using Forecast Sensitivity-based Observation Impact (FSOI).

Michael J. Murphy↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

The Impact of Assimilating Large Volumes of GNSS Radio Occultation Observations from Spire’s Commercial Constellation into NASA’s GEOS

The upcoming retrospective analysis for the 21st century (R21C) reanalysis product from NASA will include the full dataset of GNSS Radio Occultation (RO) observations collected by Spire with their constellation of smallsats. The Spire RO dataset, which was purchased by NASA for its Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition (CSDA) archive, has global coverage and increases in number from approximately 6 thousand RO profiles per day during 2019 to approximately 20 thousand in 2022-2023. This more than doubles the volume of RO profiles from all other routinely assimilated RO missions combined during 2022. The increase in the number of RO profiles available is particularly important in the extratropics as the next largest RO constellation, the state-of-the-science Formosa Satellite Mission 7 (FORMOSAT-7)/Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate (COSMIC-2) mission (hereafter COSMIC-2), is focused on the Tropics and only provides approximately 4 thousand RO profiles per day. The large number of observations in the Spire RO dataset have great potential to improve analyses and forecasts of the Earth’s atmosphere produced by numerical weather prediction systems. Their impact is assessed through numerical experiments using NASA’s Global Earth Observing System (GEOS) Atmospheric Data Assimilation System (ADAS) with and without the observations from the COSMIC-2 mission. The ability of the Spire RO observations to make up for the omission of the RO observations from COSMIC-2 is directly assessed over the tropics and the impact of Spire over the extratropics is compared to that of the available RO missions that sample over this region. Finally, the quality of the Spire RO observations is compared to that of the routinely assimilated RO missions using Forecast Sensitivity-based Observation Impact (FSOI).

Michael J. Murphy↗
NASA NTRS2017

Increasing Small Satellite Reliability- A Public-Private Initiative

At present, CubeSat components and buses are generally not appropriate for missions where significant risk of failure, or the inability to quantify risk or confidence, is acceptable. However, in the future we anticipate that CubeSats will be used for missions requiring reliability of 1-3 years for Earth-observing missions and even longer for Planetary, Heliophysics, and Astrophysics missions. Their growing potential utility is driving an interagency effort to improve and quantify CubeSat reliability, and more generally, small satellite mission risk. The Small Satellite Reliability Initiative (SSRI)—an ongoing activity with broad collaborative participation from civil, DoD, and commercial space systems providers and stakeholders—targets this challenge. The Initiative seeks to define implementable and broadly-accepted approaches to achieve reliability and acceptable risk postures associated with several SmallSat mission risk classes—from “do no harm” missions, to those associated with missions whose failure would result in loss or delay of key national objectives. These approaches will maintain, to the extent practical, cost efficiencies associated with small satellite missions and consider constraints associated with supply chain elements, as appropriate. The SSRI addresses this challenge from two architectural levels—the mission- or system-level, and the component- or subsystem-level. The mission- or system-level scope targets assessment approaches that are efficient and effective, with mitigation strategies that facilitate resiliency to mission or system anomalies while the component- or subsystem-level scope addresses the challenge at lower architectural levels. The initiative does not limit strategies and approaches to proven and traditional methodologies, but is focused on fomenting thought on novel and innovative solutions. This paper discusses the genesis of and drivers for this initiative, how the public-private collaboration is being executed, findings and recommendations derived to date, and next steps towards broadening small satellite mission potential.

SmallSat↗
NASA NTRS2018

Overview of the NASA TROPICS CubeSat Constellation Mission

Recent technology advances in miniature microwave radiometers that can be hosted on very small satellites has made possible a new class of affordable constellation missions that provide very high revisit rates of tropical cyclones and other severe weather. The Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS) mission was selected by NASA as part of the Earth Venture-Instrument (EVI-3)program and is now in development with planned launch readiness in late 2019. The overarching goal for TROPICS is to provide nearly all-weather observations of 3-D temperature and humidity, as well as cloud ice and precipitation horizontal structure, at high temporal resolution to conduct high-value science investigations of tropical cyclones (TCs). TROPICS will provide rapid-refresh microwave measurements (median refresh rate better than 60 minutes for the baseline mission) over the tropics that can be used to observe the thermodynamics of the troposphere and precipitation structure for storm systems at the mesoscale and synoptic scale over the entire storm life cycle. TROPICS will comprise a constellation of at least six CubeSats in three low-Earth orbital planes. Each CubeSat will host a high performance radiometer to provide temperature profiles using seven channels near the 118.75 GHz (gigahertz) oxygen absorption line, water vapor profiles using three channels near the 183 GHz water vapor absorption line, imagery in a single channel near 90 GHz for precipitation measurements (when combined with higher resolution water vapor channels), and a single channel at 205 GHz that is more sensitive to precipitation-sized ice particles and low-level moisture. This observing system offers an unprecedented combination of horizontal and temporal resolution in the microwave spectrum to measure environmental and inner-core conditions for TCs on a nearly global scale and is a major leap forward in the temporal resolution of several key parameters needed for assimilation into advanced data assimilation systems capable of utilizing rapid-update radiance or retrieval data. Here, we provide an overview of the mission and an update on current status,with a focus on unique characteristics of the Cubesat system, recent performance simulations on a range of observables to be provided by the constellation, and a summary of science applications.

Passive Microwave↗
NASA NTRS2017

Terahertz Instruments for CubeSats

We have been developing terahertz high resolution spectrometers and radiometers on CubeSat platforms for astrophysics, planetary science, and Earth science applications. We are also developing millimeter-wave communications systems on CubeSat platforms to provide communication links during the entry-descent-landing (EDL) phase of Mars and other planetary missions. In this paper, we present an overview of the state of the millimeter-wave and terahertz instrumentation development for CubeSat platforms. We discuss the design and implementation challenges for these instrument developments. We also look into innovative packaging solutions, antenna technology, and low-power backend options for these instruments. We show that CubeSats and SmallSats will play a key role in future scientific space missions and also they will find increasing applications in commercial communication and other endeavors.

SmallSat↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Can Large Strategic Science Missions Benefit from Class-D/SmallSat Lesson’s Learned?

This presentation is a set of charts presented at the 2024 AIAA ASCEND conference. This report is the result of an activity sponsored by Dr. Wanda Peters, Deputy Associate Administrator of Programs, who tasked Florence Tan and Carolyn Mercer with gathering insights from SmallSat/ Class D missions that could be extrapolated to enhance Class A-C missions.

SmallSats↗
NASA NTRS1994

Advanced nickel-hydrogen spacecraft battery development

Eagle-Picher currently has several advanced nickel-hydrogen (NiH2) cell component and battery designs under development including common pressure vessel (CPV), single pressure vessel (SPV), and dependent pressure vessel (DPV) designs. A CPV NiH2 battery, utilizing low-cost 64 mm (2.5 in.) cell diameter technology, has been designed and built for multiple smallsat programs, including the TUBSAT B spacecraft which is currently scheduled (24 Nov. 93) for launch aboard a Russian Proton rocket. An advanced 90 mm (3.5 in.) NiH2 cell design is currently being manufactured for the Space Station Freedom program. Prototype 254 mm (10 in.) diameter SPV batteries are currently under construction and initial boilerplate testing has shown excellent results. NiH2 cycle life testing is being continued at Eagle-Picher and IPV cells have currently completed more than 89,000 accelerated LEO cycles at 15% DOD, 49,000 real-time LEO cycles at 30 percent DOD, 37,800 cycles under a real-time LEO profile, 30 eclipse seasons in accelerated GEO, and 6 eclipse seasons in real-time GEO testing at 75 percent DOD maximum. Nickel-metal hydride battery development is continuing for both aerospace and electric vehicle applications. Eagle-Picher has also developed an extensive range of battery evaluation, test, and analysis (BETA) measurement and control equipment and software, based on Hewlett-Packard computerized data acquisition/control hardware.

Coates, Dwaine K.↗
NASA NTRS1997

Benefits of Low-Power Electrothermal Propulsion

Mission analyses were completed to show the benefits of low-power electrothermal propulsion systems for three classes'of LEO smallsat missions. Three different electrothermal systems were considered: (1) a 40 W ammonia resistojet system, (2) a 600 W hydrazine arcjet system, and (3) a 300 W ammonia resistojet. The benefits of using two 40 W ammonia resistojet systems were analyzed for three months of drag makeup of a Shuttle-launched 100 kg spacecraft in a 297 km orbit. The two 46 W resistojets decreased the propulsion system wet mass by 50% when compared to state-of-art hydrazine monopropellant thrusters. The 600 W arcjet system was used for a 300 km sun synchronous makeup mission of a 1000 kg satellite and was found to decrease the wet propulsion mass by 30%. Finally, the 300 W arcjet system was used on a 200 kg Earth-orbiting spacecraft for both orbit transfer from 300 to 400 km, two years of drag makeup, and a final orbit rise to 700 km. The arcjet system was determined to halve the propulsion system wet mass required for that scenario as compared to hydrazine monopropellant thrusters.

Oleson, Steven R.↗
NASA NTRS1997

Power Electronics for a Miniaturized Arcjet

A 0.3 kW Power Processing Unit (PPU) was designed, tested on resistive loads, and then integrated with a miniaturized arcjet. The main goal of the design was to minimize size and mass while maintaining reasonable efficiency. In order to obtain the desired reductions in mass, simple topologies and control methods were considered. The PPU design incorporates a 50 kHz, current-mode-control, pulse-width-modulated (PWM), push-pull topology. An input voltage of 28 +/- 4V was chosen for compatibility with typical unregulated low voltage busses anticipated for smallsats. An efficiency of 0.90 under nominal operating conditions was obtained. The component mass of the PPU was 0.475 kg and could be improved by optimization of the output filter design. The estimated mass for a flight PPU based on this design is less than a kilogram.

Pinero, Luis R.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Advanced Solar Panel Designs

Solar panel designs that utilize new high-efficiency solar cells and lightweight rigid panel technologies are described. The resulting designs increase the specific power (W/kg) achievable in the near-term and are well suited to meet the demands of higher performance small satellites (smallsats). Advanced solar panel designs have been developed and demonstrated on two NASA SBIR contracts at Applied Solar. The first used 19% efficient, large area (5.5 cm x 6.5 cm) GaAs/Ge solar cells with a lightweight rigid graphite epoxy isogrid substrate configuration. A 1,445 sq cm coupon was fabricated and tested to demonstrate 60 W/kg with a high potential of achieving 80 W/kg. The second panel design used new 22% efficiency, dual-junction GaInP2/GaAs/Ge solar cells combined with a lightweight aluminum core/graphite fiber mesh facesheet substrate. A 1,445 sq cm coupon was fabricated and tested to demonstrate 105 W/kg with the potential of achieving 115 W/kg.

Ralph, E. L.↗
NASA NTRS2006

Canadian Led X-ray Polarimeter Mission CXP

We propose a Canadian-led X-ray Polarimetry Mission (CXP), to include a scattering X-ray Polarimeter and sensitive All-Sky X-ray Monitor (ASXM). Polarimetry would provide a new observational window on black holes, neutron stars, accretion disks and jets, and the ASXM would offer sensitive monitoring of the volatile X-ray sky. The envisioned polarimeter consists of a hollow scattering beryllium cone surrounded by an annular proportional counter, in a simple and elegant design that is reliable and low-risk. It would be sensitive in the 6-30 keV band to approx. 3% polarization in approx. 30 Galactic sources and 2 AGN in a baseline 1-yr mission, and have sensitivity greater than 10 times that of the previous X-ray polarimeter flown (NASA's OSO-8, 1975-78) for most sources. This X-ray polarimeter would tackle questions like, Do black holes spin?, How do pulsars pulse?, What is the geometry of the magnetic field in accreting neutron stars? Where and how are jets produced in microquasars and AGN?, What are the geometries of many of the most famous accretion-disk systems in the sky? This will be done using a novel and until-now unexploited technique that will greatly broaden the available observational phase space of compact objects by adding to timing and spectroscopy observations of polarization fraction and position angle as a function of energy. The All-Sky X-ray Monitor would scan for transients, both as potential targets for the polarimeter but also as a service to the worldwide astronomical community. The entire CXP mission could be flown for $40- 60M CDN, according to estimates by ComDev International, and could be built entirely in Canada. It would fall well within the CSA's SmallSat envelope and would empower the growing and dynamic Canadian High-Energy Astrophysics community with world leadership in a potentially high impact niche area.

Kaspi, V.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Deep Space Mission Trend Analyses: A Briefing to the Next Generation EBRE Study Team

Determination of stakeholder needs for next generation implementations necessitates a multi ]pronged approach. . Future mission set analyses provide a lower gbound h for some of these needs. . Earth ]based analogies provide an upper gbound h for some of these needs. . Interpreting the results requires being mindful of both the near ]term contextual factors and long ]term factors that are in play. . In the context of last year fs analyses, the current budget environment, the potential Pu ]238 shortage, and SMD fs gsingle 34m only h policy may, collectively, create a future deep space mission set that, from a capacity and end ]to ]end link difficulty standpoint, is no more challenging than it is today. . Nonetheless, data rates and volumes continue to increase, suggesting capability and spectrum challenges ahead. These results agree with the results from the Earthbased analogies. . Emerging developments such as smallsats and distributed spacecraft could significantly change the capacity and end ]to ]end link difficulty picture.

future mission analysis↗
NASA NTRS2012

Heliophysics from and of the Moon - the Solar Occultation Explorer (SOX)

The fundamental processes of the inner corona of the Sun at 1.1 to 3 solar radii can occasionally be investigated in detail by ground-based solar eclipse observations at quasi-yearly intervals. The combination of portable ground-based telescopes and the distant occulting edge provided by the lunar limb allows imaging of coronal structure and ion excitation emission lines at the highest available spatial and spectral resolution. These observations are limited to the visible eastern and western coronal regions and cannot view the intervening region over the central disk in the hemisphere towards Earth. A comparable configuration for continuous coronal observations from a spacecraft, e.g. with an external occulter disk on a 100-meter boom, is conceivable and could generate 3-D data models of the corona via tomographic reconstruction from time series measurements but may not now be technically or economically feasible. The faster and cheaper approach would be to make high cadence eclipse observations from one or more small satellites in lunar orbit. The Solar Occultation Explorer (SOX) is suggested as an explorer-class NASA mission that would conduct eclipse observations at daily to hourly cadence depending on the orbit. This smallsat would carry two principal instrument suites: (1 ) spectroscopic imaging telescope with sub-nm resolution for selected coronal emission lines diagnostic of coronal plasma charge state, denSity, and temperature, and (2) in-situ field & particle instrument suite for measurements of the solar wind and local lunar environments. The most comparable flight heritage instrument, the LASCO C1 spectrometer on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) mission, did achieve high visible-band spectral resolution with a Fabry-Perot interferometer but was limited in brightness sensitivity by usage of an internal occulter system and has not been operational since June 1998 The SOX mission concept is undergoing initial study by the Lunar Solar Origins Exploration (LunaSOX) project of the NASA Lunar Advanced Science and Exploration Research (LASER) program. This mission would offer high complementarity with the planned Solar Probe Plus spacecraft, designed to investigate.

Cooper, John F.↗
NASA NTRS2013

NASA Facts: Edison Demonstration of Spacecraft Networks (EDSN) Mission

NASA's Edison Demonstration of Smallsat Networks (EDSN) mission will launch and deploy a swarm of 8 cubesats into a loose formation approximately 500 km above Earth. EDSN will develop technology to send multiple, advanced, yet affordable nanosatellites into space with cross-link communications to enable a wide array of scientific, commercial, and academic research. Other goals of the mission include lowering the cost and shortening the development time for future small spacecraft.

Ord, Stephen↗
NASA NTRS2013

SpiderFab(TradeMark):Process for On-Orbit Construction of Kilometer-Scale Apertures

The SpiderFab effort investigated the value proposition and technical feasibility of radically changing the way we build and deploy spacecraft by enabling space systems to fabricate and integrate key components on-orbit. Weeveloped an architecture for a SpiderFab system, identifying the key capabilities, and detailed two concept implementations of this architecture, one specialized for fabricating support trusses for large solar arrays, and the second a robotic system capable of fabricating spacecraft components such as antenna reflectors. We then performed analyses to evaluate the value proposition for on-­orbit fabrication, and in each case found that the dramatic improvements in structural performance and packing efficiency enabled by on-orbit fabrication can provide order-of-magnitude improvements in key system metrics. For phased-­‐array radars, SpiderFab enables order-­of-­magnitude increases in gain-per-stowed-volume. For the New Worlds Observer mission, SpiderFab construction of a starshade can provide a ten-fold increase in the number of Earth-like planets discovered per dollar. For communications systems, SpiderFab can change the cost equation for large antenna reflectors, enabling affordable deployment of much larger apertures than feasible with current deployable technologies. To establish the technical feasibility, we identified methods for combining several additive manufacturing technologies with robotic assembly technologies, metrology sensors, and thermal control techniques to provide the capabilities required to implement a SpiderFab system. We performed proof-­of-concept level testing of these approaches, in each case demonstrating that the proposed solutions are feasible, and establishing the SpiderFab architecture at TRL-3. Further maturation of SpiderFab to mission-readiness is well-suited to an incremental development program. Affordable smallsat demonstrations will prepare the technology for full-scale demonstration that will unlock the full potential of the SpiderFab architecture by flight qualifying and validating an on-orbit fabrication and integration process that can be re-used to reduce the life-cycle cost and increase power, bandwidth, resolution, and sensitivity for a wide range of NASA Science and Exploration missions.

Hoyt, Robert↗