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Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering

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https://hdl.handle.net/1853/70742

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College of Engineering

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Aerospace Design Group

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Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory (ASDL)

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Air Transportation Laboratory

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Cognitive Engineering Center

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Space Systems Design Laboratory (SSDL)

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Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 69

Gravity Science Requirements for Future Icy/Ocean Worlds SmallSats Missions

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-12-20) Nassif, Mohamed
Gravity Science Requirements for Future Icy/Ocean Worlds SmallSats Missions

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-12-15) Nassif, Mohamed

Over the past decade, there has been growing interest in developing mission concepts designed to explore the icy satellites of the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, some of which harbor a subsurface ocean and are geologically active, such as Europa, Enceladus and Titan. While the Galileo and Cassini missions provided data that helped improve our understanding of these bodies, these missions were not dedicated for icy moons exploration and hence many questions were left unanswered. These bodies are complex and less understood than terrestrial planets and have unique features of their own. In addition, the presence of an ocean makes these bodies key destinations in the search for life elsewhere in the Solar System. Measurement of a celestial body’s gravity field provides fundamental information on the body’s internal structure including mass distribution, tectonic process and thermal evolution. Prior gravity science experiments have enabled the development of gravity field models of various bodies such as Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Europa, Saturn, Titan and Enceladus. While gravity science alone cannot constrain the interior models due to its non-uniqueness, gravity data combined with additional measurement data such as altimetry and topography mapping can provide a better understanding of these complex worlds and their interactions with their parent planet. This paper discusses the current knowledge and unknowns of icy moons with a focus on Europa and Enceladus and proposes science objectives needed for a SmallSat icy moons exploration missions and potential measurement techniques for improved gravity science return.
Payload System Design of a CubeSat Distributed Telescope

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-12-10) Thatavarthi, Rohan

The Virtual Super-Resolution Optics with Reconfigurable Swarms (VISORS) mission is a novel CubeSat formation distributed telescope mission that aims to investigate the underlying energy release mechanisms in the solar corona. VISORS is a mission that was initially conceived in the National Science Foundation (NSF) CubeSat Innovations Ideas Lab workshop held in 2019. The mission will observe the corona in extreme ultra-violet (EUV) at an angular resolution of less than 0.2 arcseconds using two 6U CubeSats that align and fly 40 meters apart to form a distributed telescope. Achieving such a mission requires key technologies in the fields of diffractive optics, inter-satellite communication, CubeSat propulsion, and relative navigation. The development of any single one of these technologies is novel but all of them working in conjunction truly enables the VISORS mission. The consolidation of these technologies into the Cubesat form factor poses a mechanical and systems design challenge. This paper focuses on the preliminary payload design of the VISORS CubeSats, the challenges inherent with combining the key technologies into a 6U form factor, and the key next steps to mature the payload design. Working in conjunction with 10 different universities and a projected launch in late 2023, the VISORS mission will demonstrate the capabilities of CubeSats to perform high precision coronal imagery and will pave the path forward for future CubeSat swarm missions.
Manufacturing, Integration, and Testing of the Green Monopropellant Propulsion System for NASA’s Lunar Flashlight Mission

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-12) Talaski, Ali

NASA’s Lunar Flashlight is a 6U CubeSat that will be investigating the Lunar South Pole for water-ice. Propelling the spacecraft is a 2.5U green monopropellant propulsion system developed by the Georgia Tech Space Systems Design Laboratory in partnership with the NASA Marshall Spaceflight Center and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Lunar Flashlight will be the first interplanetary CubeSat to use green propulsion, and will be the first CubeSat to place itself into orbit around another planetary body. Utilizing a mix of traditional and additive manufacturing techniques to manufacture the propulsion system presented unique challenges for the project. In addition, the integration of precision flight hardware has required rapid design changes to parts to ensure that the system fits together as intended. However, as a pathfinder mission for future small satellite propulsion systems, the Lunar Flashlight Propulsion System will establish flight heritage of various components, including additively manufactured hardware, microfluidic components, custom-designed electronics, and unique cleanliness specifications.
Simulation and Dynamic Modeling of a Thermomechanical Ice Probe

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-12-01) Daniel, Nathan L.

Ice-penetrating probes are useful tools for research on Earth, particularly for studying liquid water underneath or surrounded by ice. In recent decades, interest has grown in the use of ice probes for exploring the subsurface oceans thought to exist on some of the Solar System’s icy worlds. While much work has been done on the thermal power requirements of such probes, little modeling work has been published on hybrid thermomechanical drilling probes. In this paper, a method is developed for simulating the descent trajectory of a hybrid thermomechanical probe through the ice shell of Jupiter’s moon Europa. This method com bines independent calculations of the velocity contributions from drilling and melting and a strategy for determining the conditions required for melting. Trajectories and descent time estimates are given for a range of different assumptions. Finally, the problem of melt probe attitude stability is briefly discussed and initial modeling efforts are presented.
Optical Satellite Orbit Determination from Geographically Dispersed Sensors

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-08-01) Renegar, Luke W. ; Gunter, Brian C.

Because of their relative simplicity, optical tracking systems are potentially much more cost-effective than radar for tracking resident space objects (RSOs); however, they suffer from a key drawback compared to radar in that they cannot provide range information. One way of overcoming this limitation is by triangulating the RSO’s position using multiple geographically diverse sensors. This paper presents a comparison of using triangulation techniques against using observations from similar ground station arrangements in more traditional sensor fusion techniques, such as Kalman Filtering. The influence of the geographical layout of the sensors on the quality of the orbit solution is discussed, as is the impact of the number of ground stations in the network. Performance comparisons are placed in the context of usefulness to RSO catalog maintenance, and the question of whether the improvements are operationally meaningful is explored.
Development of a Cubesat-Scale Green Monopropellant Propulsion System for NASA’s Lunar Flashlight Mission

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-07-29) Huggins, Grayson

NASA’s Lunar Flashlight is a low-cost 6U CubeSat whose mission is to search for ice and mineral deposits inside of the scattered craters at Moon’s southern pole. To conduct its primary science mission, Lunar Flashlight must be placed in a stable lunar polar orbit which requires utilization of an on-board propulsion system. However, to this date most CubeSats have been propelled by cold-gas or electric propulsion systems that have proven to scale well, but are not efficient or impulsive enough to conduct large Δ𝑉 maneuvers such as orbit insertions. To this end, the Lunar Flashlight mission has chosen to utilize a custom-designed green monopropellant propulsion system developed by the Georgia Institute of Technology under the sponsorship and guidance of NASA’s Marshall Spaceflight Center and Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The developed system is capable of providing more than the required propulsive capability for full mission success while fitting inside of a 2.5U volume and weighing less than six kilograms. The system is developed for use with the AF-M315E green monopropellant that provides higher specific impulse compared to traditional hydrazine while also being safer to handle. If successful, the presented propulsion system will enable Lunar Flashlight to be the first CubeSat to reach the Moon, the first to conduct an orbit insertion, and will be the second-ever spaceflight demonstration of the AF-M315E propellant.
Vertical Entry Robot for Navigating Europa (VERNE)

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-05-01) Szot, Phillip

The goal of the Vertical Entry Robotic Navigation of Europa (VERNE) mission is to explore the ice shelves and water reservoirs of Europa in support of the search for signs of life. Europa is widely regarded as one of the best candidates in the solar system for finding past or present signs of life. As new technologies are matured over the coming decades, this type of mission becomes possible. It is the goal of this mission concept study to establish a vehicle and mission architecture that maximizes the likelihood of overall mission success from landing to end-of-life. This study will highlight modern day technologies that will enable the mission to be completed as well as highlight technology gaps that need to be filled before this type of mission will be fully possible. This mission concept study is being performed for the Subsurface Access Mechanism for Europa (SESAME) program [5]. Under the terms of this concept study, VERNE will already have been provided with the necessary support to proceed from launch to landing on Europa. Once landed, the probe will travel toward the under-ice water reservoirs, conducting life finding science and geochemistry measurements both along the way and at the ice-ocean interface. This is highlighted in the Mission CONOPS Diagram shown in Figure 1. This mission will be the first of its kind, so novel architecture and new subsystem designs are a necessity.
Optical Satellite Orbit Determination from Geographically Dispersed Sensors

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-05) Renegar, Luke
A Survey of Free Space Optical Communications in Satellites

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-05) Hall, Stephen