Session
Technical Session II: Future Missions 1
Abstract
Several scientific missions exist that require hundreds to thousands of near-simultaneous measurements at widely distributed locations within the earth's magnetosphere. The current paradigm of individually building, designing, launching, and operating satellites is not capable of performing these missions. An autonomous constellation of smallsats and nanosats, developed as an ad hoc network of distributed wireless sensors will enable real-time, distributed, multi-point sensing of relevant phenomena. A low-cost and mass-producible solution to support this new class of space missions has been designed [1] and this paper addresses the significant system issues driven by this revolutionary technology. The constellation uses smallsats in the ~ 100 kg class as communication and computation nodes and multiple ~5 kg nanosats as distributed sensors to continuously measure plasma parameters in the ionosphere as part of a global space weather monitoring system. The constellation is comprised of separate orbital rings that consist of one or two nodes and between ten and fifty nanosats. Each of the nanosats is a distributed sensor and routing device that generates data messages and routs neighboring data to the nodes. The nodes maintain both an instantaneous data map of the entire orbit distribution of sensors and a time history of all measurements.
Presentation Slides
New Scientific Capabilities Enabled by Autonomous Constellations of Smallsats
Several scientific missions exist that require hundreds to thousands of near-simultaneous measurements at widely distributed locations within the earth's magnetosphere. The current paradigm of individually building, designing, launching, and operating satellites is not capable of performing these missions. An autonomous constellation of smallsats and nanosats, developed as an ad hoc network of distributed wireless sensors will enable real-time, distributed, multi-point sensing of relevant phenomena. A low-cost and mass-producible solution to support this new class of space missions has been designed [1] and this paper addresses the significant system issues driven by this revolutionary technology. The constellation uses smallsats in the ~ 100 kg class as communication and computation nodes and multiple ~5 kg nanosats as distributed sensors to continuously measure plasma parameters in the ionosphere as part of a global space weather monitoring system. The constellation is comprised of separate orbital rings that consist of one or two nodes and between ten and fifty nanosats. Each of the nanosats is a distributed sensor and routing device that generates data messages and routs neighboring data to the nodes. The nodes maintain both an instantaneous data map of the entire orbit distribution of sensors and a time history of all measurements.
