Small Spacecraft Community of Practice
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Lessons Learned from the CuPID CubeSat
Speaker: Emil Atz, Boston University
Wednesday, February 8, 2023
11:00AM-12:00PM Pacific Standard Time
Click here to watch the webinar.
Click here to download the presentation.
Abstract: The CuPID Cubesat was a science driven satellite mission led by Boston University and NASA with multiple collaborations from other universities and industry partners. CuPID utilized a custom built structure and instrument suite with a one-off avionics system combining COTS and custom parts. CuPID was launched into a circular 550km sun-synchronous orbit on September 27th 2021 from Vandenberg Space Force base. After launch, CuPID’s radio did not respond to ground commands. Over the course of a year of debugging, the most probable root cause of no-contact was determined to be the spacecraft radio. This presentation will cover the development of the mission and hardware, as well as the operations conducted for CuPID. Lessons the team learned from CuPID’s development will also be shared.
Bio: Dr. Emil Atz is a Post-Doc at Boston University developing particle and X-ray detection instruments to study interactions between the Sun and Earth, specifically magnetic reconnection. Emil defended his Ph. D. in the fall of 2022 under the guidance of advisor Brian M. Walsh, presenting on the CuPID Cubesat mission and study of magnetic reconnection. Before Boston University, Emil received his Bachelors of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Connecticut.
S3VI encourages the community to submit questions before the webinar to enable more directed responses. Please send questions to craig.d.burkhard@nasa.gov.
