Abstract

NASA’s Integrated Solar Array and Reflectarray Antenna (ISARA) payload is hosted by a 3U cubesat being built by The Aerospace Corporation. The spacecraft will be launched on a low-Earth orbit during the summer of 2016.

The small size of the bus electronics allowed for the inclusion of CUMULOS, a secondary payload. CUMULOS consists of 3 commercial-of-the-shelf cameras: a 1.3 cm diameter Visible CMOS, a 1.8 cm SWIR InGaAs, and a 2.3 cm LWIR VOx uncooled bolometer. CUMULOS' goal is to develop optimal methods for the operation of passively cooled commercial-of-the-shelf sensors and determine their suitability to perform weather/environmental monitoring missions. Possible applications include day and night observations of human and natural phenomena, weather events, high altitude clouds, land features, and airglow evolution. CUMULOS primary mission is expected to last 3 months.

In this talk, we present the results of the ground campaign to determine the characteristics of the payload. Activities included characterization of the performance in a Thermal-Vacuum chamber at a range of operational temperatures, measurement of flats, darks, and read noise, and radiometric calibrations. We compare the measured performance to that of other remote sensing assets such as the Visible Infrared Imaging Suite (VIIRS). These comparisons show the great potential but also the limitations of cubesats to perform environmental monitoring.

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Aug 23rd, 2:30 PM

The Cubesat Multispectral Observation System (CUMULOS)

NASA’s Integrated Solar Array and Reflectarray Antenna (ISARA) payload is hosted by a 3U cubesat being built by The Aerospace Corporation. The spacecraft will be launched on a low-Earth orbit during the summer of 2016.

The small size of the bus electronics allowed for the inclusion of CUMULOS, a secondary payload. CUMULOS consists of 3 commercial-of-the-shelf cameras: a 1.3 cm diameter Visible CMOS, a 1.8 cm SWIR InGaAs, and a 2.3 cm LWIR VOx uncooled bolometer. CUMULOS' goal is to develop optimal methods for the operation of passively cooled commercial-of-the-shelf sensors and determine their suitability to perform weather/environmental monitoring missions. Possible applications include day and night observations of human and natural phenomena, weather events, high altitude clouds, land features, and airglow evolution. CUMULOS primary mission is expected to last 3 months.

In this talk, we present the results of the ground campaign to determine the characteristics of the payload. Activities included characterization of the performance in a Thermal-Vacuum chamber at a range of operational temperatures, measurement of flats, darks, and read noise, and radiometric calibrations. We compare the measured performance to that of other remote sensing assets such as the Visible Infrared Imaging Suite (VIIRS). These comparisons show the great potential but also the limitations of cubesats to perform environmental monitoring.