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ItemSystems Integration and Test of the Lunar Flashlight Spacecraft(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-08) Cheek, Nathan ; Gonzalez, Collin ; Adell, Philippe ; Baker, John ; Ryan, Chad ; Statham, Shannon ; Lightsey, E. Glenn ; Smith, Celeste R. R. ; Awald, Conner ; Ready, W. JudLunar Flashlight is a 6U CubeSat launching in late 2022 or early 2023 that will search for surface water ice content in permanently shadowed regions at the south pole of the Moon using infrared relative reflectance spectroscopy. The mission will act as a technology demonstration of an Advanced Spacecraft Energetic Non- Toxic (ASCENT) green propulsion system and active laser spectroscopy within the CubeSat form-factor. This paper provides an overview of the entire Systems Integration and Test campaign which took place at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Georgia Institute of Technology. From initial testing of the isolated avionics and payload subsystems to the final tests with a fully integrated spacecraft, the project’s integration and test campaign is reviewed, with a focus on lessons learned.
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ItemRecovery of a Lost Satellite: The ARMADILLO Mission(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-08) McDonald, Dillan ; Lightsey, E. Glenn ; Peet, SterlingAfter 949 days in space, contact with the ARMADILLO CubeSat from the University of Texas at Austin has been established. After a complete reconstruction of the ground command software, the Space System Design Laboratory (SSDL) at Georgia Tech has commanded and received acknowledgements and data downlinks from ARMADILLO as well as commanded a hard reset. The Georgia Tech Ground Station Network (GT GSN) has leveraged its autonomous contact capability to maintain consistent contact with ARMADILLO, enabling it to remain online for longer than a week. Something ARMADILLO had previously never accomplished due to the ground contact condition for onboard reset never being satisfied. This has prompted the development of a late-life commissioning plan that currently indicates that ARMADILLO has the potential to accomplish its original science goals.
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ItemNonlinear Spacecraft Formation Flying Using Constrained Differential Dynamic Programming(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-08) Sasaki, Tomohiro ; Ho, Koki ; Lightsey, E. GlennThe advancement of spacecraft guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) technology is essential for future space systems. This paper contributes to the GNC area by solving nonlinear unconstrained/constrained multi-spacecraft optimal control problems using an existing technique of dynamic programming, differential dynamic programming (DDP). DDP is a trajectory optimization methodology that iteratively finds a local optimal control policy around nominal state and control sequences. This method is extensively getting attention in Robotics and Aerospace and is extended to a constrained problem in a recent decade. The constrained DDP (CDDP) has proven its optimality and displayed satisfactory numerical performance. This paper utilizes this algorithm and simulated spacecraft formation flying by the Julia Language. Benefiting from the fast computing language, successful CDDP spacecraft formation flying simulation results are shown in this paper without using any numerical optimization solvers.
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ItemDevelopment of a Lunar Mission Operations Center for the NASA JPL Lunar Flashlight Mission(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-05-01) Medisetti, Jishnu ; Lightsey, E. GlennWith advancements in small satellite technology being seen, these low cost, small form factor systems are being considered for interplanetary missions. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s (JPL) mission, Lunar Flashlight is a 6U CubeSat which aims to orbit the Lunar South pole and detect craters for water ice. This mission is a technology demonstration which hopes to prove the viability of low cost CubeSats for interplanetary missions. This low resource model for satellites extends to its mission operations as well. Georgia Institute of Technology’s Space System Design Laboratory has been contracted to perform mission operations for Lunar Flashlight. The operations team was able to develop and expand the capabilities Georgia Tech Mission Operations Center (MOC) to support this Lunar mission. Hardware integration was established to connect various operations machines to each other and the Deep Space Network. Interfaces were defined between the operations team and external parties including the Mission Design and Navigation team at JPL. Using the certified MOC, the operations team was also successfully able to perform and complete their first operational readiness test which simulated the first phase of the Lunar Flashlight mission.
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ItemDesign of the 3-D Printed Cold Gas Propulsion Systems for the VISORS Mission(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-02) Hart, Samuel T. ; Daniel, Nathan L. ; Hartigan, Mark C. ; Lightsey, E. GlennThe VISORS mission will observe the Sun's corona with the goal of collecting data that can shed light on the mechanisms of coronal heating. This will be accomplished through the use of a diffractive telescope. The telescope requires a focal length of 40 meters, which will be achieved by implementing two precisely positioned 6U CubeSats flying in formation. One spacecraft will carry the telescope optics, and the other will carry the detector. The spacecraft have stringent relative positioning requirements in science operations, which must be maintained during 10 second observations. In order to accomplish this relative positioning, a propulsion system capable of providing precise impulses in six orthogonal directions is necessary on board each spacecraft. Due to the varied shapes and sizes of each spacecraft's respective available payload volume, a different envelope is allotted to each spacecraft's propulsion system. 3-D printing the propellant tanks, nozzles, and tubing into one structure allows the full available propulsion volumes to be used despite their unusual shapes. This has contributed to the design of two low-cost propulsion systems capable of providing a combined total velocity change of 23 m/s. This paper describes the pertinent mission requirements, propulsion system design methodologies, and expected performance characteristics of the thrusters.
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ItemSPECTRE: Design of a Dual-Mode Green Monopropellant Propulsion System(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-02) Colón, Brandon J. ; Glaser, Mackenzie J. ; Lightsey, E. Glenn ; Bruno, Amelia R. ; Cavender, Daniel P. ; Lozano, PauloMiniaturization of propulsion systems has pushed the capabilities of small satellites by allowing them to perform more complex tasks such as orbital maneuvers and formation flying. Georgia Institute of Technology's Space Systems Design Lab (SSDL) is designing a dual-mode propulsion system referred to as Spectre which will utilize AF-M315E (ASCENT) monopropellant to feed both modes. The propulsion system is capable of performing high thrust maneuvers via a chemical thruster that provides 1 N of thrust force and high efficiency maneuvers with 4 groups of electrospray thrusters. Spectre provides a total Δ𝑉 of 1097 m/s for a 12U CubeSat and has a dry mass estimate of 5.2 kg. This design accounts for approximately 8U (229mm x 238mm x 146 mm) of the CubeSat volume. The internal volume allocates 4.78 L for propellant, a pressurant gas and a propellant management device. Development efforts for this system are performed in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). This report presents the design efforts of the additively manufactured tank, the mechanical integration of Spectre, and future work.
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ItemConcept of Operations for the VISORS Mission: A Two Satellite Cubesat Formation Flying Telescope(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-02) Lightsey, E. Glenn ; Arunkumar, Ebenezer ; Kimmel, Elizabeth ; Kolhof, Maximilian ; Paletta, Antoine ; Rawson, William ; Selvamurugan, Shanmurugan ; Sample, John ; Guffanti, Tommaso ; Bell, Toby ; Koenig, Adam ; D'Amico, Simone ; Park, Hyeongjun ; Rabin, Douglas ; Daw, Adrian ; Chamberlin, Phil ; Kamalabadi, FarzadThe Virtual Super-resolution Optics with Reconfigurable Swarms (VISORS) is a National Science Foundation (NSF) space physics mission which will detect and study fundamental energy-release regions in the solar corona. The VISORS mis-sion will image extreme ultraviolet (EUV) features on the Sun at a resolution of at least 0.2 arcseconds from Low Earth Orbit (LEO). To accomplish this objective, VISORS will use a pair of formation flying 6U CubeSats: one of which carries the observatory optics while the other contains the detector instrument. VISORS will serve as a proof of concept for this distributed instrument approach by obtaining at least one 10-second exposure image during its six-month mission life-time. Meeting the strict relative orbit requirements during science observations will demonstrate several technologies key to precise formation flying including intersatellite link, relative navigation, and autonomous maneuver planning. To satisfy these stringent mission requirements, a concept of operations has been established that requires maneuvering between a standby orbit where housekeeping tasks are performed and an actively maintained science orbit where observations are conducted. Formation acquisition, re-acquisition, fault recovery, and escape operations are also planned. This paper provides a description of the VISORS formation flying concept of operations: explaining the function and rationale of each operation mode, how these modes are designed, and how they collectively meet the mission requirements. Specific challenges and mission trades related to performing precision formation flight with CubeSats are discussed. A Failure Mode Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) is conducted to assess the risk of collision under the most probable fault scenarios, which is used to inform the development of operational mitigation strategies and on-board fault tolerant collision avoidance (COLA) logic.
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ItemAssembly Integration and Test of the Lunar Flashlight Propulsion System(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-01) Smith, Celeste R. ; Littleton, Lacey M. ; Lightsey, E. Glenn ; Cavender, Daniel P.The Lunar Flashlight Propulsion System (LFPS) was created to perform a Lunar Orbital Insertion maneuver for the Lunar Flashlight spacecraft so it can conduct its search for water in the lunar South Pole. The focus of this paper is on the late-stage design, integration, and test of the LFPS. The structure of the LFPS is 3D printed and further 3D printing was utilized to assist in the assembly process. The design will be reused to build a second unit and its heritage is already being leveraged on other early concept propulsion systems.
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ItemDevelopment of a COTS-Based Propulsion System Controller for NASA’s Lunar Flashlight CubeSat Mission(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-08) Cheek, Nathan ; Daniel, Nathan L. ; Lightsey, E. Glenn ; Peet, Sterling ; Smith, Celeste R. ; Cavender, Daniel P.The Lunar Flashlight mission is designed to send a 6U CubeSat into lunar orbit with the aim of finding water-ice deposits on the lunar south pole. The Glenn Lightsey Research Group (GLRG) within Georgia Tech’s Space Systems Design Laboratory (SSDL) is developing a low-cost propulsion system controller for this satellite using commercial-o↵-the-shelf (COTS) parts, with an emphasis on overcoming the harsh environment of lunar orbit through careful architecture and testing. This paper provides in-depth coverage of the LFPS controller development and testing processes, showing how an embedded system based on COTS parts can be designed for the intense environment of space. From the high-level requirements architecture to the selection of specific hardware components and software design choices, followed by rigorous environmental testing of the design, radiation and other environmental hardening can be achieved with high confidence.
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ItemSensitivity of Separation Indicators in Spacecraft Formation Collision Risk Analysis(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-08) Núñez Garzón, Ulises E. ; Lightsey, E. GlennThe 99.73% minimum distance, denoted as 3, is the 0.27%-percentile in the distribution of the norm of the instantaneous relative position between two agents. Previously, 3 has been proposed as a probabilistic collision risk boundary for spacecraft formation flight under the assumption of Clohessy-Wiltshire (CW) relative orbital dynamics. In this case, agents with lesser separation than 3 have an instantaneous collision probability higher than 0.27%. This work validates the foregoing interpretation of 3 by showing that small changes to the target probability of 3 also result in small changes to 3 itself.