Student and amateur CubeSat news roundup – Dec.9.2020

A sampling of recent articles, press releases, etc. related to student and amateur CubeSat / SmallSat projects and programs (find previous smallsat roundups here):

** Two Brigham Young University student Cubesats set to go to orbit on Virgin Orbit LauncherOne flight this month: How BYU’s work with NASA will allow satellites to take selfies in space – Deseret News

For the last five years, students at the BYU College of Engineering have been dreaming up, designing and building two tiny satellites. And after a two-year delay in the launch of NASA’s ELaNa 20 mission, the cube-like modules are finally ready to head to space.

The “CubeSats” have cameras attached to each of their six sides and are designed to take photos of other satellites, giving NASA a cheap method of visually examining the exteriors of spacecraft.

“The idea is you carry up one of these sort of selfie cameras,” said David Long, an engineering professor at BYU, “and when you needed to get a picture of your spacecraft — it is very inexpensive; it’s disposable — you kind of toss it out the window, conceptually, you know, you just deploy it, and it takes pictures of your main spacecraft. And then it just drifts off into space.”

BYU Passive Inspection CubeSat. Credits: BYU PICS

See also:

** Dept. of Education’s CTE Mission: CubeSat competition announces selection of 5 finalists: U.S. Department of Education announces five finalists in national challenge

[On Dec.2], the U.S. Department of Education announced the five finalists in CTE Mission: CubeSat, a national challenge to build technical skills for careers in space and beyond. Finalists will each receive $5,000 and in-kind prizes that they may use to build CubeSat (cube satellite) prototypes in the second phase of the challenge.

…

Congratulations to the finalists:

- Anderson Clark Magnet High School (La Crescenta, California) is studying whether local encampments are in high-risk wildfire areas, with the goal of helping the local fire department save lives of people without housing.
- Freeport High School (Freeport, New York) is measuring Earth’s surface temperature to study the differences in heat absorption and retention between urban and rural areas.
- Mooresville High School (Mooresville, North Carolina) is measuring the effect of their town’s population growth on air quality, land use, and temperature.
- Opelika High School (Opelika, Alabama) is collaborating with Columbus High School and Northside High School (Columbus, Georgia). The team plans to collect performance data for a new type of core material used in NASA-grade fluxgate magnetometers, which are used to study Earth’s changing magnetic field.
- Princeton High School (Princeton, New Jersey) is collaborating with Montgomery High School (Skillman, New Jersey). The team wants to optimize space missions by examining topics such as atmospheric pressure density or habitable planetary environments.

The finalists will now begin work on the second phase of the program:

During Phase 2, which runs from January to May 2021, the finalists will have access to expert mentorship and additional virtual resources as they build CubeSat prototypes and plan flight events to launch their prototypes. The Department understands that due to current conditions, schools will need flexibility to safely collaborate when building and launching prototypes.

The prizes include development kits and expert mentorship donated to the Department from Arduino, Blue Origin, Chevron, EnduroSat, LEGO Education, Magnitude.io, MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative, and XinaBox.

** MIT DeMi testing deformable mirror for hi-res telescope applications: Mini-satellite maker – MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Inside the small probe, named DeMi, was a deformable mirror payload that Cahoy and her students designed, along with a miniature telescope and laser test source. DeMi’s mirror corrects the positioning of either the test laser or a star seen by the telescope. On future missions, these mirrors could be used to produce sharper images of distant stars and exoplanets. Showing the mirror can operate successfully in space is also proof that “nanosatellites” like DeMi can serve as nimble, affordable technology stepping-stones in the search for Earth-like planets beyond our solar system.

Space-for-All at HobbySpace

Student and amateur CubeSat news roundup – Dec.9.2020

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