Small Spacecraft Activities Around the Agency Archive

Highlights for March 2021

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Wallops Flight Facility

Integration and test (I&T) activities for two of NASA Goddard Space Flight System’s five current SmallSat missions are now in full swing, despite the challenges of bringing our workforce onsite during COVID. The Plasma Enhancements in The Ionosphere-Thermosphere Satellite (petitSat) team has assembled the board stack and powered up for testing, with flight component and harness testing beginning. An in-house developed Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) FlatSat is currently completing flight software testing and will be available for more focused petitSat use in mid-March. The Geostationary Transfer Orbit Satellite (GTOSat) mission is also now in the I&T phase. Component testing is underway using a second custom configured Geo Clean FlatSat (see image below). To date, testing of the electrical power system and reaction wheels is complete and the avionics stack testing is in work. Antenna test pattern testing will be conducted soon at the Wallops Flight Facility.

NASA’s Kennedy Space Center / CubeSat Launch Initiative

Since the last quarterly update, the CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) facilitated the launch of 11 more CubeSats on two different missions (ELaNa 20 / Virgin Orbit Launch Demo-2, and ELaNa 35 / Transporter-1). To date, 123 CSLI-selected CubeSats have been launched and another 66 are manifested or are on contract to fly within the next 18 months. Proposals for the 12th annual CSLI selection cycle have been received and are being evaluated. Selections will be announced in the spring of 2021. You can read more about CSLI at the following links:

• https://tdglobal.ksc.nasa.gov/servlet/sm.web.Fetch/SP-2020-06-652-KSC_LSP_Info_Book_Small_Satellite_Missions_page.pdf?rhid=1003&did=49617&type=released
• https://www.nasa.gov/kennedy/launch-services-program/cubesat-launch-initiative/

NASA’s Ames Research Center

Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator-1

NASA’s Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator-1 (PTD-1) launched January 24, 2021 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on the Transporter-1 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. PTD-1 is currently performing operations in orbit to test Tethers Unlimited Inc.’s (TUI) Hydros-C water-fueled propulsion system. The propulsion system launched carrying approximately one pint of liquid water as the propellant. The system uses electrolysis to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen and burns these gases in a rocket nozzle to generate thrust. PTD-1 is the first mission to demonstrate a water-based electrolysis propulsion system on any type of spacecraft.

• https://www.nasa.gov/missions/small-satellite-missions/nasa-cubesat-to-demonstrate-water-fueled-moves-in-space/

V-R3x

V-R3x is a technology demonstration mission that launched on the Space-X Transporter-1 mission on January 24th, 2021, along with PTD-1. V-R3x consists of three 1U CubeSats aimed to demonstrate novel spacecraft swarm technologies and techniques for radio networking and navigation. This small-scale demonstration will allow the implementation for future larger multi-spacecraft missions, enabling NASA to pursue its future science, technology, and exploration goals. This technology demonstration is a collaboration between the Payload Accelerator for CubeSat Endeavors (PACE) initiative at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Stanford University, and Carnegie Mellon University. PACE is an initiative funded by the Small Spacecraft Technology program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. A follow-on NASA Flight Opportunities program high-altitude balloon demonstration launched in mid-March to demonstrate advanced swarm topology communication and ranging algorithms.

• https://www.nasa.gov/missions/small-satellite-missions/what-is-v-r3x/

• https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/ames/picking-up-the-pace-accelerating-development-of-deep-space-technologies/

NASA’s Glenn Research Center

NASA Glenn Research Center is working in collaboration with Tethers Unlimited, Inc. (TUI) to develop and demonstrate the Hydros-C propulsion system that utilizes a water-based propellant. This development effort is the result of a NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) “Tipping Point” solicitation award. The system was launched on NASA’s first Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator (PTD-1) mission on January 24, 2021. The Hydros-C propulsion system will be performing a series of flight demonstrations for 1 to 4 months on a 6U CubeSat in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), demonstrating its capability to perform proximity operations, orbital maneuvers, and deorbit.

• https://www.nasa.gov/smallspacecraft/pathfinder-technology-demonstrator/

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

SunRISE:

A number of presentations and posters on the Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (SunRISE) mission were presented at conferences over the last few months. SunRISE is a NASA Explorer mission in Phase B with launch planned in 2023.

ASCEND 2020: November 16-18

• Joseph Lazio, “From Space Weather to Extrasolar Planets”

American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting 2020: December 1-17

• Justin Kasper, “SunRISE and Enabling Technologies”
• Joseph Lazio, “The Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment“
• Andrew Romero-Wolf, “The SunRISE Mission Architecture”
• Alex Hegedus, “SunRISE and Radio Emission from CMEs”

237th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society: January 10-15, 2021

• Alex Hegedus, “SunRISE as a Pathfinder” (please contact the author for more details)

IEEE Aerospace 2021: March 6-20

• Justin Kasper, “The Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment”  (please contact the author for more details)

RainCube:

The Radar in a CubeSat (RainCube) satellite naturally de-orbited and burned up in Earth’s atmosphere on December 24th after nearly 2.5 years in space. After regaining reliable Nadir pointing capability in August 2020, RainCube continued to target interesting weather systems and completed a successful S-band downlink demonstration with three Amazon Web Services ground stations (two international and one domestic). The RainCube flight project will officially conclude later this spring.

For more information, please read the end-of-mission press release:

• https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/a-pioneering-nasa-mini-weather-satellite-ends-its-mission.

Lunar Flashlight (LF):

The Lunar Flashlight (LF) project is making progress toward a final delivery date to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on July 31, 2021. At NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, LF passed the end-to-end test validation of its payload consisting of four near-infrared lasers. The team is currently working on integrating the flight system with the payload. At NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, the propulsion system is also being integrated and qualification tested. By end of April, both systems will be delivered to a third-party organization to perform the final integration and environmental tests. The third-party is currently being competitively selected and will be publicly announced in the March timeframe. An exciting year ahead!

Lunar Trailblazer:

The Lunar Trailblazer project successfully transitioned to Phase-C having passed key decision point C in late November. The project is currently coordinating procurements for major flight system elements and preparing for its critical design review (CDR) in the late spring / early summer timeline.

PREFIRE:

The Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment (PREFIRE) project completed all of its subsystem and system reviews and will be holding it’s CDR shortly.

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