Cubesat Operations, How to fly a Cubesat

by Patrick H. Stakem

Overview

This book covers the topic of satellite control centers for Cubesats. We'll take a look at some of the historical development of satellite control centers. Mention a spacecraft control center, and every one remembers the one from the movie Apollo-13. A cubesat control center can be implemented on a laptop. We'll look at the evolution of satellite control centers to understand how we got to where we are, and we'll look at evolving technology to see where we can go.

As technology advances, we have a better technology basis for control centers, as well as cheaper yet more capable hardware, and better and more available software. With the proliferation of inexpensive Cubesat projects, colleges and universities, high school, and even individuals are getting their Cubesats launched. They all need control centers. For lower cost missions, these can be shared facilities. Communicating with and operating a spacecraft in orbit or on another planet is challenging, but is an extension of operating any remote system. We have communications and bandwidth issues, speed-of-light communication limitations, and complexity. Remote debugging is a always a challenge.

The satellite control center is part of what is termed the Ground Segment, which also includes the communication uplink and downlink. The control center generates uplink data (commands) to the spacecraft, and receives, processes, and archives downlink (telemetry) data. The spacecraft is usually referred to as the space segment. The spacecraft usually consists of a "bus", the engineering section, and the payload, either a science instrument package or a communications package. Satellite busses can be "off-the-shelf," leading to economies of scale. This is the Cubesat way.

I am not going to tell you how to implement a satellite control center, but rather what its functions are. They are many commercial products that can be used, and a few open source options. Don't re-invent the wheel.

This book is a companion to the Cubesat Engineering book by the author.

This book was compiled from ITAR-compliant sources.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940157428433
Publisher:	PRRB Publishing
Publication date:	05/23/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	162 KB

About the Author

Mr. Patrick H. Stakem has been fascinated by the space program since the Vanguard launches in 1957. He received a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University, and Masters Degrees in Physics and Compute Science from the Johns Hopkins University. At Carnegie, he worked with a group of undergraduate students to re-assemble and operate a surplus Athena missile guidance computer. It was brought up to operational status, and modified for general purpose use.

He began his career in Aerospace with Fairchild Industries on the ATS-6 (Applications Technology Satellite-6), program, a communication satellite that developed much of the technology for the TDRSS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System). He followed the ATS-6 Program through its operational phase, and worked on other projects at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center including the Hubble Space Telescope, the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE), the Solar Maximum Mission (SMM), some of the Landsat missions, and others. He was posted to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for MARS-Jupiter-Saturn (MJS-77), which later became the Voyager mission, and is still operating and returning data from outside the solar system at this writing.

Mr. Stakem is affiliated with the Whiting School of Engineering of the Johns Hopkins University, and Capitol Technology University.