Amateur/Student Satellite, Education, Space Systems

Student and amateur CubeSat news roundup – Nov.3.2019

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

** NG Cygnus carries HuskySat-1, built by Univ. Washington students, to ISS.

HuskySat-1 is a 3U CubeSat designed, built, and tested by the Husky Satellite Lab. HuskySat-1’s goal is to test two experimental payloads, a Pulsed Plasma Thruster, and a high-frequency K-band communication system, as well as hosting an Amateur Radio Linear Transponder.

HuskySat-1 is being developed by an interdisciplinary team at the University of Washington and will be launched into Low Earth Orbit to become the first amateur satellite from Washington state. This CubeSat will demonstrate the capabilities of new technologies being developed at the University of Washington and expand the capabilities of CubeSats as a whole. In particular, a high-thrust pulsed plasma thruster (PPT), and high-gain communications system will form the core technology suite on board the satellite. The HuskySat-1 will also be flying a newly developed Amateur Radio Linear Transponder developed by AMSAT which will contribute to the worldwide communication networks built and operated by ham radio enthusiasts.

HuskySat-1
HuskySat-1

More about the project: Washington’s first student-built satellite preparing for launch | UW News

Some of the student-built parts will still be in test mode. A custom-built thruster uses sparks to vaporize small amounts of solid sulfur as a propellant. The thruster will fire about 100 times as the satellite passes over Seattle, only enough thrust to provide a slight nudge. A high-bandwidth communications system built by former graduate student Paul Sturmer, now at Blue Origin, transmits at 24 Gigahertz, allowing the satellite to quickly send reams of data. That system will send down a test packet from space.

“Usually people buy most of the satellite and build one part of it. We built all the parts,” Northway said. “It was a pretty serious undertaking.”

** Seven student built CubeSats on Cygnus in total: Seven Student-Made CubeSats Set To Fly Aboard Antares –  NASA

On Saturday, seven small research satellites, or CubeSats, developed by students from eight universities across the nation will fly on Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops, Virginia, targeting a launch at 9:59 a.m. EDT.

All seven CubeSats were selected through NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) and are a part of the 25th Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) mission. CSLI enables the launch of CubeSat projects designed, built and operated by students, teachers and faculty, as well as NASA Centers and nonprofit organizations. ELaNa missions provide launch and deployment opportunities and ride-shares to space for CubeSats selected through CSLI. Students are heavily involved in all aspects of the mission from developing, assembling, and testing payloads to working with NASA and the launch vehicle integration teams. The ELaNa CubeSats are held to rigorous standards similar to those adhered to by the primary spacecraft.

Five of the CubeSats were developed through NASA’s Undergraduate Student Instrument Project or USIP.

The 5 USIP CubeSats flying on Antares are:

    • RadSat-u –  Montana State University – Bozeman
    • Phoenix –  Arizona State University – Tempe
    • SOCRATES  (Signal of Opportunity CubeSat Ranging and Timing ExperimentS) – University of Minnesota – Minneapolis
    • HuskySat-1 – University of Washington – Seattle
    • SwampSat II – University of Florida – Gainesville

…

The additional two CubeSats flying through CSLI are:

    • Argus-02 – St. Louis University – Missouri
    • HARP (Hyper Angular Rainbow Polarimeter) –  University of Maryland, Baltimore County – Baltimore and Utah State University – Logan

More about HARP: Tiny NASA satellite will soon see ‘rainbows’ in clouds | EurekAlert.

** 300 days operating in orbit for ZACube 2 research CubeSat built at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT): South African nanosatellites will track shipping, fires | The BRICS Post

A constellation of South African nanosatellites will be put in orbit next year to monitor shipping to prevent the poaching of marine resources such as abalone and sharks, while they will also track fires so ground-based personnel can move livestock out of harm’s way and prevent the spread of the fire.

The technology for this constellation is being proven right now as the ZACube 2 research nanosatellite from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) will log its 300th day in orbit on the 23rd October 2019. ZACube 1, also known as TshepisoSat, was launched on 21st November 2013 and is still communicating with the ground station.

…

The ZACube 2 satellite is performing well in orbit and proving the technology that the university has developed,” Professor Robert van Zyl, the Director of French South African Institute of Technology (FSATI) said.

** AMSAT news on student and amateur CubeSat/smallsat projects: ANS-307 AMSAT News Service Special Bulletin

  • HuskySat Successfully Lifted into Space
  • ARISS Contact Opportunities – Call for Proposals
  • FoxTelem Version 1.08r Released
  • Fox-in-a-Box Upgrades for FoxTelem V 1.08
  • AMSAT Seeks Digital Communications Team Members
  • The 39th Annual ARRL and TAPR Digital Communications Conference Announced September 11-13, 2020, Charlotte, NC
  • VUCC Awards-Endorsements for October 2019
  • Upcoming Satellite Operations
  • ARISS News
  • Satellite Shorts from All Over

General CubeSat/SmallSat info:

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Rockets

Space transport roundup – Nov.2.2019

A sampling of recent articles, videos, and images dealing with space transport (find previous roundups here).

** Northrop Grumman Antares successfully launches Cygnus cargo spacecraft. This is the 12th Cygnus mission to the the ISS. The craft is to dock with the ISS at 4:10 am EST on Monday, Nov. 4th.

Lift off is at the 30:32 point in the webcast video:

The pre-launch briefing given on Friday:

** Japan’s HTV-8 “Kounotori” cargo vehicle left the ISS on Friday: HTV-8 departs ISS ahead of destructive re-entry – NASASpaceFlight.com

** Interview with Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck: Episode T+138: Peter Beck, Founder of Rocket Lab – Main Engine Cut Off

Peter Beck, Founder, CEO, and CTO of Rocket Lab, joins me to talk about what they’ve been up to with Electron and Photon, as well as some of their new offerings like ground station support through KSAT and Photon missions to the Moon.

** Aevum gains a USAF contract for its drone-launched rocket: Vector’s lost contract gives wings to new startup Aevum – SpaceNews.com

Aevum, an Alabama startup designing a drone-launched rocket in a former textile mill, went from winning a $50,000 study grant to landing a $4.9 million U.S. Air Force launch contract in the span of three weeks.

About a month later, on Oct. 10, Aevum then became one of eight launch service providers qualified by the Air Force to compete for $986 million worth of small- and medium-sized launch missions over nine years.

Ravn Releases Rocket - Aevum
Ravn Releases Rocket – Aevum

** Virgin Orbit promotes LauncherOne for beyond earth orbit missions:

With the addition of a third stage housed within the rocket’s fairing, LauncherOne can send cutting-edge satellites on a ride past LEO into deep space. We’ve run the numbers, and we think we’ve got a solid engineering plan for ways to use a third stage to launch payloads not only into LEO, MEO, and GEO, but even towards the Moon, any of the Earth-Moon LaGrange points, various main-belt asteroids, Venus, or Mars. With this simple adaptation, LauncherOne unlocks the ability to deliver enough mass to interplanetary destinations to conduct some really valuable smallsat missions, whether that’s studying the potential for extraterrestrial life or learning more about the chemical composition of far-flung worlds.

https://youtu.be/WviwMNQ-EaU

** bluShift Aerospace hopes to launch bio-fueled rockets from Maine: Billion-dollar ‘Space Port’ business could be headed to Maine if state legislator has her way | newscentermaine.com

“For long enough people have thought of Mainers as, ‘We do great lobster, we do, heck, we do great beer,'” Sascha Deri, founder of bluShift, said. “It’s time for us to show the world that, ‘No, we do a lot of really cool things too like, rockets.'”

** China prepares for launch of Long March 5 heavy lift rocket: China on pace to resume Long March 5 launches by end of year – Spaceflight Now

Components for China’s third Long March 5 rocket arrived at the country’s southern launch base this week as teams prepare for the first flight of the heavy-lift launcher since a 2017 mission ended in failure.

The return-to-flight mission, expected in the second half of December, is a major test of the heavy-lift rocket before China commits to launching a Mars rover and a lunar sample return mission on Long March 5 vehicles next year.

** French space agency tests Frog, a prototype vertical takeoff & landing vehicle: Successful captive flights for FROG – CNES. It is jet powered but serves to teach the VTOL techniques needed for rocket landings.

Both demonstrations in captive flight take-off and landing were a success. FROG is a small scale flight demonstrator designed to test vertical landing algorithms for future reusable launchers.

The project team is currently preparing the Free Flight Fitness Review (RAV) which will take place in October and will allow free flight tests, without gantry or safety cable.

FROG VTOL Prototype
FROG jet powered VTOL prototype in tethered tests.
FROG Schematic
Schematic diagram of the FROG VTOL demonstrator.

** Japan preparing the RV-X vertical takeoff and landing rocket vehicle for test flights. The RV-X is essentially a re-start of the RVT (Reusable Vehicle Test) program of the late 1990s, early 2000s. See my interview with Yoshifumi Inatani, who led the RVT program.

Here is a set of program overview slides in Japanese (pdf). Note that CALLISTO mentioned on the slides refers to a VTOL suborbital rocket vehicle under development by the French and German space agencies. See CALLISTO – Reusable VTVL launcher first stage demonstrator, E. Dumont et al, 2018 (pdf).

** Exodus Space pursues two-stage space plane RLV design. Here is an overview by Fraser Cain:

Exodus CEO Miguel Ayala recently gave a presentation to the FISO (Future In-Space Operations Working Group): Fully Reusable, Two-Stage-To-Orbit (TSTO), Horizontal Takeoff & Landing Spaceplanes – Here are the slides (pdf) and the audio:

AstroClipper - Exodus Space
The flight sequence for the Exodus Space AstroClipper reusable launch system.

** Latest update on space elevators from ISEC (Int. Space Elevator Consortium): ISEC Newsletter – November 2019

The ISEC has had an impact. In the last 6 years the technical maturity and engineering substance of the Space Elevator has solidified and become organized; most notably as the Galactic Harbour.   ISEC’s Technology Development and Maturation approach has melded a better definition of the Space Elevator Engineering solution(s). 

The Elevator is no longer a mystery. Engineering approaches for the Tether Climber, the Earth Port, the GEO Region, and the Apex Anchor have been expressed in terms everyone understands; a harbor. The last technology hurdle – strong material for the tether – was conquered.

*** NASA Commercial Crew update:

The current dates for the tests:

  • Boeing:
    • Nov.4: Pad abort test at the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico. The event will be webcast.
    • Dec.17: Orbital Flight Test (OFT) will send an uncrewed Starliner to the ISS via a ULA Atlas V launch.
  • SpaceX:
    • Nov. 6: Static firing of all the SuperDraco engines on the Crew Dragon.
    • Early Dec.: In-flight abort test in which a Crew Dragon will fire its abort engines to depart from a Falcon 9 during the max-Q portion of the flight.

** SpaceX:

** Attaching a canard to the Spaceship Mk.1:

** Next Falcon 9 launch of Starlink satellites set for Nov. 11. Presumably these Starlinks will be operational spacecraft rather than the demo prototypes on the first launch.  Over the coming year, SpaceX hopes to get into a routine of Starlink launches about every two weeks. 2nd Starlink Mission Launch Campaign Thread : spacex/reddit.com.

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Astronomy, Education

Videos: Night sky highlights for November 2019

[ Update: “What’s Up” for November 2019 from NASA JPL:

Highlights of the November sky include how to watch as Mercury transits the Sun on Nov. 11, plus how to observe the regular dimming and brightening of the “Demon star,” Algol, with your own eyes. Additional information, along with still images from the video, and the video transcript, are available at https://go.nasa.gov/34hp376 . Algol animation is licensed as CC-BY-SA 3.0. Video credit NASA-JPL/Caltech.

]

** “Tonight’s Sky” for the coming month courtesy the Space Telescope Science Institute:

In November, hunt for the fainter constellations of fall, including Pisces, Aries, and Triangulum. They will guide you to find several galaxies and a pair of white stars. Stay tuned for space-based views of spiral galaxy M74 and the Triangulum Galaxy, which are shown in visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light.

** What’s in the Night Sky November 2019 – Alyn Wallace

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In Space Infrastructure, Living in Space, Space Systems

Videos: “Space to Ground” ISS report – Nov.11.2019

This week’s episode of NASA’s “Space to Ground” report on activities related to the International Space Station:

** Down to Earth – NASA Johnson

In “Down to Earth – The Overview Effect” NASA astronauts discuss a shift in worldview from their time living and working in space. The phenomenon is described in space philosopher Frank White’s book, The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution.

** Expedition 61 Inflight Event with Eastern Aroostook School Unit 39 – October 29, 2019

Astronaut Jessica Meir discusses life in space with students in her Maine hometown.

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Activism

Space policy roundup – Nov.1.2019

A sampling of links to recent space policy, politics, and government (US and international) related space news and resource items that I found of interest (find previous space policy roundups here):

Webcasts

** Commercial Crew Presentation at NASA NAC Meeting (10/30/2019) – NASA Spaceflight

Kathy Lueders, the Program Manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, provides an update at the Oct. 30 NAC meeting on the status of Boeing’s Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. The two spacecraft will carry astronauts to the Space Station.

** Debate on NASA’s Proposed Gateway – 22nd Annual International Mars Society Conference

Debate on NASA’s proposed Lunar Orbital Gateway space station and the possible approaches to America’s return to the Moon.
Dr. Robert Zubrin – President, The Mars Society
Greg Autry – Director, SoCal Commercial Spaceflight Center

** Hotel Mars – Wed, 10/30/2019 with John Batchelor, Dr. David Livingston – William Harwood of CBS News talks about NASA’s Artemis lunar program.

** October 29, 2019 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast | Behind The Black

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