Here is the latest episode in NASA’s Space to Ground weekly report on activities related to the International Space Station:
** Expedition 64 Inflight with The Centers For Disease Control – February 10, 2021 –NASA Video
Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 64 Flight Engineers Kate Rubins and Shannon Walker of NASA discussed research aboard the orbital laboratory with officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during an in-flight conversation Feb. 10. Rubins arrived at the station last October aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft while Walker launched to the station last November on the SpaceX Crew Dragon “Resilience”.
** Watch Russia’s Progress spacecraft depart space station in time-lapse – Space.com Videos
Russia’s Progress MS-15 cargo spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station on Feb. 9, 2021.
** Spacewalker moved by robotic arm in amazing space view – Space.com Videos
NASA astronaut Victor Glover is being moved by the International Space Station’s Canadarm2 to another work site in this spacewalk footage from Feb. 1. 2021.
A sampling of recent articles, press releases, etc. related to student and amateur CubeSat / SmallSat projects and programs (find previous smallsat roundups here):
Designing a satellite and launching it into space is no run-of-the-mill project. Rather, it’s one that forever marks the early careers of the students who take part – just ask the EPFL students who designed the SwissCube, a 1U CubeSat (a small standardized unit measuring 10 cm x 10 cm) launched in 2009. Today, a new group of students, the EPFL Spacecraft Team, is taking on a new challenge. With the support of the EPFL Space Center (eSpace), they are developing a constellation of two satellites, called CHESS, that will be launched in two years. The team is currently seeking additional members and sponsors.
This ambitious project has already signed on six universities, three companies, 15 professors and 53 students.* The two satellites will work in concert; each one will be a 3U CubeSat bearing primary and secondary payloads. They will orbit at different altitudes – one will travel in a circular orbit at the low altitude of around 550 km, and the other will travel in an elliptic orbit at an altitude oscillating between 400 km and 1,000 km. The constellation will be launched in March 2023 and remain in flight for at least two years.
This project will give the students who participate each year a chance to learn about complicated space technology and gain experience working on a cross-disciplinary team. “It’s a way to learn the real-world skills required in our industry, like team management, coordination, communication and fundraising,” says Emmanuelle David, the deputy director of eSpace. “These are skills you can’t learn only from a book. And they will let the students become operational as soon as they start their first job or when and if they decide to start their own business.”
New technologies will be tested thanks to the CHESS mission. Credits: EPFL
The science team at Brigham Young University (BYU) is finally where no Cougar has gone before, with a camera.
“Spacecraft Selfie Cam” is the nickname of BYU’s tiny cube satellites, “CubeSats” for short.
The school’s science team has made history with the tiny 6-inch space probes. For the first time, satellites designed in Provo have been successfully deployed in space.
About 60 students worked on the NASA funded project over a five year span:
BYU is part of a NASA project where the directive is, “The PICs mission will demonstrate low-risk, low-cost, spacecraft inspection by a passive, fly-away probe.”
What does it mean? The satellites are designed to take pictures of other satellites, and that’s how they got the name “Spacecraft Selfie Cam” If you watch science fiction movies, you have seen the probes portrayed hundreds of times in many ways. Essentially the probes fly out into space from the spacecraft and inspect for damage. Only BYU’s little probes are real.
“QMR-KWT space mission is to empower students to contribute to the advancement of satellite communication technology, and to prepare them as future professionals to operate the next generation of communication satellites,” said Nada Alshammari, Director of Educational Programmes at Orbital Space. “Orbital Space is undertaking this pioneering mission in order to create educational opportunities for students from around the world to learn more about satellite communications. We are already seeing engagement from students with our QMR-KWT educational program ‘Code in Space’” added Nada Alshammari. “Code in Space is an opportunity for students to develop and test new software solutions by writing software code to be uploaded and executed on the satellite’s onboard computer. We are currently accepting student proposals for this out of the world opportunity.”
The QMR-KWT satellite will go to space via a SpaceX Falcon 9 Rideshare mission, currently set for June of this year. A Momentus Vigoride transfer stage will take the satellite to its target orbit after release from the F9 upper stage.
Curtin University’s Binar CubeSat, the first satellite model fully designed and built in Australia, is set to launch into space later this year.
The five launches planned for the next two years will be aided by $500,000 in funding from the State Government.
The funding will be used by Curtin University to employ two senior engineers to support the scheduled launch of five Binar CubeSats in 2021 and 2022.
This will be the first constellation designed, developed and operated in Australia.
The satellite can be used for a range of applications such as remote sensing, imaging, communications and defence.
In partnership with Tokyo-based start-up Space BD Inc, Curtin will release WA’s first spacecraft from the International Space Station into low earth orbit in late 2021.
** SriShakthiSat, built by students at Coimbatore College in India, set to launch on PSLV rocket on Feb.28th. A ground station on campus was inaugurated during a visit by ISRO Chairman K. Sivan.
At about four inches across each side, the “CubeSat” is small. And fast. It circles the globe every 90 minutes at 17,000 miles per hour. Radiation levels collected along the way via a small Geiger counter and a small plastic chip embedded inside will help inform NASA efforts to develop small, chip-based radiation detectors.
“The detectors would provide liquid crystal display readings so astronauts could constantly monitor how much radiation they’re being exposed to,” explained UL Lafayette’s Dr. Paul Darby, the project leader.
Darby, an assistant professor in the University’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, said the detectors could be configured like wristwatches astronauts could wear, or credit cards they could carry in their pockets.
The research is part of NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative. The initiative provides opportunities for colleges and universities to conduct scientific investigations in space; findings, in turn, assist NASA with exploration and technology development.
** Univ. of Michigan MiTEE CubeSat operating in orbit after launch on Virgin Orbit LaunchOne rocket. The spacecraft, whose full name is Miniature Tether Electrodynamics Experiment-1, will test a electrodynamic tether for propellantless propulsion. See previous posts about the MiTEE project here and here.
Update: MiTEE-1 is operational with nominal health beacons and battery voltages! This is a huge accomplishment for our team as we continue MiTEE-1’s Health & Status Checkout procedures; more updates to come! 〽️🛰️
(Check out MiTEE-1 on the RHS of the first image!) pic.twitter.com/gl2tD2rBXM
The @miteecubesat, built by a team at @UMich, is proving out the concept of an electrodynamic tether between satellites in space. Miniature ED tethers could be a simple way to enable smallsat constellations to function more like coordinated fleets rather than uncontrolled swarms. pic.twitter.com/69lbxul4Ck
Space Flight Laboratory (SFL), a developer of complete microspace missions, today announced the launch and successful deployment of 12 satellites on January 24, 2021. The SpaceX Falcon 9 ride-sharing mission carried three different SFL-designed microspace platforms into orbit for three separate commercial constellations.
The January 24 launch included:
Three formation-flying, radio frequency geolocating microsatellites built upon SFL’s 30-kg DEFIANT platform for HawkEye 360 Inc. of Herndon, VA.
One next-generation greenhouse gas monitoring microsatellite, known as GHGSat-C2 or “Hugo”, built by SFL on its 15-kg NEMO platform for GHGSat Inc. of Montreal, Canada.
Eight commercial communications CubeSats developed using the SFL 6U-XL SPARTAN design.
This week’s deployment of the DEFIANT microsatellites also marked the third entirely new microspace platform developed by SFL to reach orbit in just the past five months. SFL’s SPARTAN bus was introduced for the first time on September 28, 2020, with the launch of two communications CubeSats. And SFL’s NAUTILUS microsatellite platform made its debut on September 2, 2020, with the launch of the NEMO-HD Earth observation mission for Slovenia.
“These launches demonstrate SFL’s unmatched ability to innovate and deliver quality at any size on short schedules,” said SFL Director, Dr. Robert E. Zee. “SFL is a unique microspace provider that offers a complete suite of nano-, micro- and small satellites – including high-performance, low-cost CubeSats – that satisfy the needs of a broad range of mission types from 3 to 500 kilograms.”
A space weather nanosatellite, developed by Sirius high school students, will be launched at the end of 2021. The test model has already passed the initial trials, the high school told TASS Wednesday.
“The small spacecraft of the CubeSat-3U format will be brought to the orbit in late 2021. Sirius’ own satellite will collect data on space weather for Moscow State University (MSU) scientists. The satellite was assembled by students at Sirius high school, under supervision of the ‘Space systems and remote Earth probing’ laboratory specialists,” the high school press service said.
The “YUSAT (aka Yushan) ” and “IDEASSAT (aka Flying Squirrel)” CubeSats were successfully launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS), in Florida, the United States, at 11:00 pm of January 24, 2021, Taiwan time. The ground receiving station of National Central University (NCU) successfully received the IDEASSAT CubeSat downlink signal at 9:00 pm on February 1st, and successfully decoded the first beacon message at 11:34 pm.
After YUSAT and IDEASSAT CubeSats were transported to CCSFS in Florida, U.S., in December of last year, various integration and test (I&T) and inspection tasks as well as joint interface tests with the Falcon 9 rocket at the launch site have been performed. At 11:00 pm in the evening on January 24th, they were carried by the Falcon 9 rocket and launched into space. About 59 minutes after the rocket launch, the two satellites began to separate from the rocket. The separated satellites are orbiting the earth with the altitude of about 525 kilometers, with the period about 96 minutes, and at an inclination of about 97.5 degrees. YUSAT and IDEASSAT would be passing and communicating with the ground stations in Taiwan 1 to 2 times between 8 and 10 o’clock in the morning and evening, respectively.
In the first few days, neither the YUSAT ground station of National Space Organization (NSPO) of National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs) nor the IDEASSAT ground station of NCU received signals from two CubeSats, respectively. However, there were some good news about the transmitted signals from the two CubeSats received by the foreign stations fortunately, because these amateur radio stations around the world can cooperate each other for receiving satellite signals. Based on the received and decoded signals from them, both satellites are confirmed to be alive and continuously orbiting around the Earth.
Developed with domestic facilities X-Band Transmitter, By integrating the U3 size cube satellite with high resolution camera The images obtained will be transmitted to the ground station. Also located on the cube satellite radiation dosimeter Thanks to this, radiation information in the low orbit environment will be recorded for feedback for design improvements.
As our first ever batch of customers begin to downlink data from their satellites, let’s take a deeper dive into each of the missions that flew onboard LauncherOne this month. First up are CACTUS-1, ExoCube, and CAPE-3. To learn more about our Launch Demo 2 mission, visit our website: https://virg.in/j7y
From scientific experiments to tech demonstrations, we’re taking a closer look at each of the missions that flew to space onboard #LaunchDemo2. This week, the spotlight is on MITEE-1, PICS and PolarCub.
From scientific experiments to tech demonstrations, we’re taking a closer look at each of the missions that flew to space onboard #LaunchDemo2. Tune in to our last of three Payload Profiles learn a bit more about Q-Pace, RadFXSat-2, and TechEdSat-7.
On June 25, 2018, RainCube and Tempest-D were deployed from the International Space Station. Both are 6U CubeSats developed by NASA-JPL as instrument technology demonstrations. RainCube implemented the first precipitation radar in a CubeSat and Tempest-D tested the performance of a CubeSat microwave radiometer to observe precipitation and clouds. Together, they became the first CubeSats to measure precipitation from space, with Raincube providing detailed vertical structure information and Tempest-D providing coarse vertical and detailed horizontal structure.
** Tuesday, Feb.3.2021 – Dr. Greg Autry “summarized the space accomplishments of the last four years, then looked ahead to space policy and plans in the coming administrations. Dr. Autry suggested the Artemis program and The Artemis Accords would continue, he explained why the Moon was so important and much more.”
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):
1) News of Geely’s satellite constellation (and Qingdao Shanghe Aerospace Technology) … 2) Carbon fiber cryogenic tank for liquid oxygen (CALT) … 3) Article from MacroPolo about Rising Stars in China’s Political Hierarchy… 4) HNA Group enters bankruptcy restructuring…
** The Space Show – Tuesday, Feb.2.2021 – Dr. Greg Autry “summarized the space accomplishments of the last four years, then looked ahead to space policy and plans in the coming administrations. Dr. Autry suggested the Artemis program and The Artemis Accords would continue, he explained why the Moon was so important and much more.”
In this week’s Space Cafè WebTalk, Mahmoud Abu Wasel, Vice-President of The Hague Institute for Global Justice talked about the new space initiative of the institute.
In this Space Cafè “Black Ops by Ralph Thiele #2”, Colonel (Ret`d) Ralph Thiele, Chairman of the Berlin based Political-Military Society, President of Euro Défense-Germany, and Managing Director of StratByrd Consulting, Germany talked with his guests about the Implication for Security & Defence coming with quantum technologies.
His guests in this session were:
Dr. Ing. Heike Poignand, Prof. Dr. Dr. José Achache. They also answered relevant questions from the audience.
Here is the latest episode in NASA’s Space to Ground weekly report on activities related to the International Space Station:
** Science Launching on Northrop Grumman’s 15th Resupply Mission – NASA
Experiments using worms to study muscle weakening, examining how astronauts sleep, and testing high-powered computers in space will be launching, along with more scientific experiments and supplies, to the International Space Station on a Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft. This Cygnus is named the S.S. Katherine Johnson, after the NASA mathematician whose calculations were critical to the success of our early human spaceflight missions. The vehicle launches no earlier than Feb. 20 from our Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Many of the experiments launching on this spacecraft build on previous studies conducted during the more than 20 years of continuous human habitation of the International Space Station, helping us explore farther in to space, and benefiting humans back on Earth. Learn more about the research being conducted on station: https://www.nasa.gov/iss-scienceFollow
** Spacewalk to Finish Battery Upgrades & Install Cameras on the International Space Station – NASA
Watch two spacewalkers at work outside the International Space Station! NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Michael Hopkins will exit the orbiting lab’s Quest airlock at about 7 a.m. EST [Feb.1.2021], to complete tasks including battery maintenance and installing high definition cameras. Live coverage on NASA Television begins at 5:30 a.m.. The spacewalk will officially begin once the duo set their spacesuits to battery power, and is scheduled to last approximately six-and-a-half hours.
** Expedition 64 Astronauts Speak with National Science Foundation – February 3, 2021 –NASA Video
Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 64 Flight Engineers Kate Rubins and Victor Glover of NASA discussed research and other aspects of life in space during an in-flight conversation Feb. 3 with members of the National Science Foundation. Rubins, who is an epidemiologist, arrived on the station last October aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, while Glover flew to the station last November aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon “Resilience” vehicle.
[Amazon ad link], “the unexplained anomalies of Oumuamua, searching for more interstellar objects, the blowback for his suggesting a possible extraterrestrial origin for this strange fast moving interstellar object and more”.
