Orbital Sciences successfully launched its Antares rocket on Sunday, achieving another milestone for NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. Future flights of the Antares will carry Orbital’s Antares space tug, which is intended to service the International Space Station. Overlooked by most of the news reports are four small satellites which Antares carried as secondary payloads.
The NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative has selected more than two dozen satellites, including JPL’s Interplanetary NanoSpacecraft Pathfinder In Relevant Environment (INSPIRE), for launch in 2014-2016.
Here’s another example showing the utility of human-tended experiments on parabolic flights for technology development. This time, it’s low-cost CubeSat hardware.
Due to the growing interest in low-cost interplanetary missions, an Interplanetary Small Satellite Conference has been announced. NASA Chief Technologist Dr. Mason Peck will be featured speaker at the conference, which takes place at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena on June 20-21.
Small satellites are typically defined as those weighing less than 500 kilograms, but conference organizers strongly encourage submitters to focus on satellites under 50 kilograms. Abstract submission is now open now and registration will open soon.
Meanwhile, the Second Interplanetary CubeSat Workshop is still scheduled to take place in Ithaca, NY, on or near the Cornell University campus, on May 28-29. Earlier reports that the Interplanetary Small Satellite Conference replaced the workshop were incorrect.
Aviation Week reports that Raytheon has received a $1.5-million, nine-month contract to begin designing a small imaging satellite under the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s Space Enabled Effects for Military Engagements (SeeMe) project.
SeeMe intends to demonstrate a 24-satellite constellation that can provide rapid tactical intelligence to the warfighter. The SeeMe satellite would provide 1-meter resolution images on demand to handheld terminals in the field.
DARPA specified that each SeeMe should weigh less than 100 pounds. Raytheon’s concept is substantially lighter at 44 pounds. Another goal is affordable, on-demand production. DARPA wants to the manufacturer to be able to deliver a satellite within 90 days of initial order, for no more than $500,000.
Generation Orbit Launch Services, Inc. has announced a strategic partnership with Space Propulsion Group of Sunnyvale, California to continue development of the company’s airborne small-satellite launch system, known as GO Launcher.
Generation Orbit and Space Propulsion Group plan to develop new launch systems offering suborbital and orbital launch services to commercial, government, and academic customers.
Space Propulsion Group has spent the last decade designing, developing, and manufacturing paraffin-fueled hybrid rockets. SPG has ground-tested six 22-inch diameter, flight-weight LOX/paraffin motors, with the latest test taking place in July 2012.
Generation Orbit chief operating officer A.J. Piplica said, “GO and SPG have been developing a working relationship to bring a dedicated launch capability to the micro- and nanosatellite community. With that relationship now formalized, our synergistic development plans are starting to take shape.”
Space Propulsion Group president and chief technology officer Arif Karabeyoglu said, “SPG’s advanced hybrid rockets deliver very high performance while retaining the affordability, safety and simplicity vital to the next generation of small launch vehicles. Combined with Generation Orbit’s innovative approach to air launch, advanced hybrids are a perfect fit for developing a cost effective and responsive launch capability for small satellites.”
Potential participants in the Nano-satellite Launch Challenge are telling us they’ve received official notification from Space Florida that NASA has canceled the Space Act Agreement for the Challenge.
What this means is not exactly clear. In theory, NASA could continue the Nano-satellite Launch Challenge with another partner. Most likely, however, means for the challenges that.
NASA’s explanation is that they surveyed 15 possible nanosat launch projects and found that two government-funded projects (SWORDS and ALASA) were the only candidates that appeared to have a chance of success. That explanation completely miss the point of prizes, which is to reward competitors only if they succeed, rather than prejudging outcomes.
[Update: An email from a NASA employee close to the Centennial Challenges program confirms that SWORDS and ALASA were key factors in the cancelation. The email also states that “NASA has also found a significant technology gap in low cost avionics and GN&C systems needed to support the development of a low cost nano-sat launch system.” That statement sounds surreal when a quick trip to RadioShack can net you a three-axis gyroscope and more computing power than the entire world possessed at the time of Sputnik.]
This announcement is disappointing, on two levels. It’s a setback for the teams who intended to compete, but it’s also a setback for the Centennial Challenges program, which has been drifting these past few years.
The Centennial Challenges program was inspired by the Ansari X-Prize, which proved that a small company could develop and fly a suborbital spacecraft at low cost. The Lunar Lander Challenge, one of the first Centennial Challenges, was a boon for suborbital companies such as Armadillo Aerospace and Masten Space Systems. Unfortunately, with the apparent cancelation of the Nano-satellite Launch Challenge, NASA has no challenges that are aimed at the most important problem facing future space activities – reducing the cost of access to space.
The major part of the blame lies with Congress, which has underfunded Centennial Challenges for years (when it funded it at all).
NASA itself deserves part of the blame, however. Over the years, the focus of Centennial Challenges has shifted from promoting innovation in the American aerospace sector to addressing the specific needs of NASA’s own programs, such as Mars sample return. This shift is not surprising given the way the program has bounced around the agency, finally ending up under the Office of the Chief Technologist.
Compounding the problem is the fact that NASA tried to pick a winning technology horse before the race began. A large part of the Centennial Challenges money was carved out early on for Space Elevator Challenges, even though the space-elevator concept was a high-risk technology with little likelihood of reducing launch costs in the near term. (They were egged on by the Space Frontier Foundation and the Spaceward Foundation, which were enamored of the space elevator despite its questionable economics and low technology readiness level.)
The US government has vested interest in lowering launch costs, and prizes can be a powerful tool for furthering that purpose. Unfortunately, this cancelation casts increased doubt on NASA’s reliability as a sponsor for space-access prizes. At some point, we have to ask ourselves if we’re trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Perhaps the time has come to consider other agencies, such as DARPA or the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation, as prize sponsors?
Rumors say the $3 million Nano-Satellite Launch Challenge, funded by NASA and run by the Space Florida Small Satellite Research Center, is about to be canceled. The official announcement is said to be coming Monday. [Update: See It's Dead, Jim.]
Several recent developments show that the Interplanetary CubeSat concept, which we reported on previously, is continuing to gain mindshare.
The following videos show brief introductions to the CubeSat kits available from two of the leading suppliers, Pumpkin and Clyde Space. The videos are from the LunarCubes Briefing which took place yesterday in Palo Alto.
NASA’s PhoneSat project has won the Popular Science‘s 2012 Best of What’s New Award for innovation in aerospace. PhoneSat will demonstrate the ability to launch low-cost, easy-to-build satellites with advanced capabilities enabled by off-the-shelf consumer smartphones.
The development of small, low-cost off-the-shelf satellite technology is enabling new capabilities for military as well as civilian users. The US Army is taking advantage of this technological revolution by developing three new satellites to provide tactical imaging for the warfighter.
Kestrel Eye
The Technology Center at the US Army Space and Missile Defense Command is developing Kestrel Eye, an imaging reconnaissance nanosatellite that can be tasked by warfighters on the ground. Kestrel Eye will produce images with a resolution of 1.5 meters (5 feet), which can be downlinked directly to soldiers in the field.
Ardusat is a project that will allow Arduino programmers to run their programs on satellite in space without actually having to build a satellite.
The Ardusat team is developing a CubeSat satellite with an Arduino payload. Arduino, for those who don’t know, is a popular open-source micro controller board. In addition to the Arduino board, the satellite will have an assortment of sensors including a camera, GPS, ozone and carbon-dioxide sensors, a geiger counter, thermometer, magnetometer, inertial measurement unit, and vibration, light, and pressure sensors.
When Ardusat is in orbit, programmers will be able to upload code to run on the Arduino board. There’s also an opportunity to propose additional sensors prior to launch.
The Ardusat team has created a Kickstarter project to help fund the project. They’re trying to raise $35,000. To pledge money to the project, go here.
You can subscribe to the online Journal of Small Satellites at no charge through December 31, 2012. Click here to subscribe.
Flexure Engineering is proposing a modification to the CubeSat standard to meet the requirements of lunar missions: longer duration, higher radiation, and more extreme thermal environments compared to Low Earth Orbit missions. The LunarCube standard would also address integration and operational issues of multiple LunarCubes on one ride-along mission or lander.
The proposed standard was discussed in a paper at the 43rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in March, 2012. Further discussions will take place at an open forum, the 1st International Workshop on LunarCubes (LunarCubes: The Next Frontier), which is scheduled to take place October 4-6 in Mountain View, California. The proposed workshop schedule includes morning and afternoon sessions on software, electronics, mechanical issues, orbital missions, surface issues, and funding.
Flexure estimates there could be five to ten lunar-lander ride opportunities in the coming decade, based on five national space programs and 25 Google Lunar X-Prize teams. In addition, with weak stability boundary transfers from Geosynchronous Earth Orbit to lunar orbit, every GEO satellite location is a potential starting point for lunar orbit missions.
For more information, see the LunarCubes website.
The National Science Foundation is sponsoring a CubeSat workshop in the DC area on Thursday, May 24.
The event, which carries the rather wordy title of Workshop to Explore the Utility of Cubesat Projects for Scientific Research and Technology Advances and STEM Education and Workforce Development, takes place from noon to 3:00 pm in the atrium of the NSF building at 4201 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA 22230.
As the emerging commercial space industry enables more people to travel into space, and we become more dependent on satellite systems for military and commercial purposes, accurate and timely space weather forecasts are a matter of growing importance.
We previously reported that registration the First Interplanetary CubeSat Workshop, scheduled to take place May 29-30 in Cambridge MA, had filled up. There’s good news for people who still want to attend.
Although the main auditorium is full, conference organizers have set up a second room with a video link. (They are calling it, appropriately enough, the satellite room.) Registration for the satellite room is being discounted to $150 ($37.50 for students) for those who register by May 1. Click here to register.
There are also plans to provide a live video stream of the event for those who cannot attend.
It’s great to see the planetary-science community is once again taking a strong interest in low-cost missions. With NASA’s budget situation getting worse every year, CubeSats might be the salvation of the planetary-science program.
We recently reported on NASA’s plans to fly low-cost satellites based on consumer smartphones. NASA plans to fly three PhoneSats based on Nexus One smartphone and Android operating system in 2012. In 2013, it plans to launch a constellation of 14-20 Ethersats, based on the Nexus One satellite bus that’s being tested on PhoneSat missions.
This isn’t the first time NASA has flown Android smartphones in space, however. In 2011, the SPHERES robots aboard the International Space Station were upgraded to use Nexus S smartphones. NASA modified the phones by removing the GSM cellular communications chip to avoid interference with ISS electronics, so the phones are permanently in airplane mode, and replaced the standard lithium-ion battery with AA alkaline batteries.
Smartphone processors are 10-100 times faster than the radiation-hardened chips normally found in space systems, so the new brain provides a significant upgrade to the robots’ capabilities.
NASA astronauts have also used the Apple iPhone 4s, running a custom app called Spacelab for iOS developed by Odyssey Space Research. Citizen scientists who want to experiment with the Spacelab for iOS app can download it from the iTunes App Store for $0.99. The app that’s available on iTunes is identical to the version that was flown to ISS on the last flight of the Space Shuttle Atlantis, the same flight that carried the Nexus S smartphones for SPHERES. The Spacelab for iOS app contains a gravity check that allows ground-based users to perform simulated experiments that mimic the tasks and objectives of the flight experiments.
NASA Ames Research Center continues work on its PhoneSat project, which is demonstrating the ability to build very-low-cost satellites using Android smartphones as processors.
Ames has built two versions of the PhoneSat – PhoneSat 1, which costs about $3500, and PhoneSat 2, which costs just under $8,000. Both versions are based on HTC Nexus One smartphones. The first PhoneSats are scheduled to be launched aboard an Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares launch vehicle. The launch, funded under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, is scheduled for the third quarter of 2012. It will carry two PhoneSat 1 satellites and one PhoneSat 2. A second PhoneSat launch is expected to occur in 2013.
PhoneSat isn’t just about cost-cutting, though. Engineers are not sacrificing power for the sake of economy. Quite the contrary. Thanks to the rapid advance of consumer electronics, cell phones have become powerful supercomputers. The Nexus One processor will be 10-100x more powerful than any other processor that’s flown in space.
After the tech demo flights, the PhoneSat bus will serve as the basis for future low-cost satellite missions, beginning with the Ethersat mission that’s scheduled for launch in mid-2013. Sponsored by the NASA Office of the Chief Technologist, Ethersat will be a constellation of fourteen CubeSats, with an option for six additional satellites. EtherSat will demonstrate advanced cross-link and down-link communications, attitude control, and other emerging technologies. Such constellations are expected to have applicability to future earth-science and military missions. Ethersat is funded under the Edison Small Satellite Demonstration Program.
In addition to the Nexus One, the PhoneSat contains an Arduino board. Low-cost satellites generally avoid using radiation-hardened (“rad hard”) electronics, due to the expensive. A single rad-hard processor can cost $400,000. Instead, they have watchdog systems (in this case, the open-source Arduino board) to reboot the main processor if it crashes due to a radiation event.
Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (ALASA) is a project of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). It is headed by Mitchell Burnside Clapp, a long-time advocate of air launch and winged systems. Burnside Clapp was one of the founders of Pioneer Rocketplane, which later became Rocketplane, LLC.
ALASA seeks to address military concerns with traditional ground-launched systems. The military views these systems as costly due to high manpower requirements at fixed facilities, sluggish due to the need to reconfigure pads between launches, rigid due to limitations on launch azimuth launch times, and brittle because they are vulnerable to weather, earthquake, tsunamis, and enemy attack. DARPA believes that air launched systems will be more affordable, more responsive (the goal is one day from call-up to launch), more flexible (any orbit, any time), and more resilient.
Like NASA’s Nanosatellite Launch Challenge, ALASA hopes to develop a reliable, cost-effective launcher for small satellites. DARPA’s definition of “small” is a bit different, though. The NASA challenge is targeting CubeSat-sized payloads up to one kilogram. ALASA wants to develop a system that can put up to 100 pounds (45 kilograms) into Low Earth Orbit. That would apparently rule out systems like the GO Launcher, for example.
Generation Orbit is a new subsidiary of SpaceWorks Engineering. Headed by SpaceWorks veteran A.C. Charania, Generation Orbit plans to develop an air-launch system for nanosatellites.
Generation Orbit estimates there are 250 nanosatellite projects at the present time. It expects that there will be a market for 100 nano satellite launches per year by the end of this decade. Currently, most small satellites are launched as secondary payloads on rideshare missions, which means their operators have little or no control over launch schedule and orbital destination. Generation Orbit believes that air launch will provide more flexibility.
The company’s initial demonstrator, GO Launcher 1, would use existing solid-fueled upper stages. Go Launcher 1 could mature into an operational capability capable of delivering 1-10 kilograms to a 250-kilometer circular orbit.
GO Launcher 2 would be a larger system capable of placing 20-30 kilograms into a 450 km circular orbit. It might incorporate new technology.
Generation Orbit’s conceptual design appears quite open at the present time. The company’s website shows potential concepts based on the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II and F-15D Eagle, the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker, and a Gulfstream II or III business jet.
The F-15 option parallels a future concept being studied at at Premier Space Systems.
The Su-27 option might seem odd choice, given that Generation Orbit intends to operate in the US. The company hopes to fly from a variety of launch sites including the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center in California, Kennedy Space Center, and Cecil Field Spaceport in Jacksonville, Florida.
There is at least one operation Su-27 in the United States at the present time, however. Reliable sources tell us that the registered owner is actually a dummy company owned by Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen. There is no reason to believe he’s involved with Generation Orbit, however.
By coincidence, Paul Allen is also has an interest in air-launch projects, having financed the development of SpaceShip One and being the founder of Stratolaunch.
A.C. Charania has participated in workshops for NASA’s Nanosatellite Launch Challenge, so it seems a safe bet that Generation Orbit intends to compete for that prize.
Montana State University has announced plans to build a technology-test satellite called PrintSat. A one-unit CubeSat (10 cm on a side), PrintSat will be built out of nano-carbon-impregnated plastic using a 3D printer.
PrintSat was selected by NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative in 2012 and may be in space as soon as 2013.
MSU professor David Klumpar said 3D printing “will further lower the costs and speed the development of very small satellites, enabling future scientific missions comprised of dozens of satellites flying in formation.”
Printing satellite parts on Earth for use in space is one thing, but Made in Space is a startup company that wants to use 3D printers to manufacture parts in space. Made in Space tested two printers on Zero Gee flights in the summer of 2011 under the sponsorship of NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program. In one experiment, they manufactured an open-end wrench to show how 3D printing could produce tools for use aboard a future space station.
Made in Space hopes test their 3D printing technology aboard a suborbital flight in the near future.
Contrary to popular belief, 3D printing is not limited to plastics. 3D printers have been demonstrated with a wide variety of materials including metals. Paul Breed of Unreasonable Rocket has demonstrated the use of such a printer to build rocket engines.
At the recent CubeSat Developer’s Workshop at Cal Poly, we heard a rumor that somebody had launched a CubeSat made from Legos.
Unfortunately, the Lego-1 CubeSat appears to be a hoax – an April Fool’s joke.
Although no one has yet built a CubeSat structure out of Legos yet, a team of International Space University students at NASA Ames Research Center did build a prototype satellite that uses Lego NXT electronics. It made the cover of Make magazine in October 2010.
We hope someone does build a CubeSat out of Legos soon, though, because. Just because.