Big Numbers for Small Missions: NASA’s Future with CubeSats
Abstract
A new paradigm for NASA spacecraft has begun to take hold, leveraging the intersection of advanced commercial technologies, secondary launch opportunities, and very-small packaging - along with a new high-risk posture. NASA has had tremendous historical success with its typical robotic missions to LEO and beyond into the Solar System. However, the traditional low-risk mission approach to maximize science return can lead to significantly increased costs and drive even more complexity into the systems and missions. In this paper, we assess an alternate approach for NASA to greatly lower costs, by accepting higher mission risks, and using established engineering capabilities to achieve worthwhile science return and technology advancement - the Cubesat. The Cubesat format was developed by Universities as a educational framework to teach spacecraft engineering through the simplification of the satellite's infrastructure and design. This enabled teams to produce a workable satellite at a rapid pace and low cost, with a pre-defined launcher-payload interface that takes away the engineering for mating the satellite with a launcher. In 2006, NASA launchedit¹s first scientifically viable Cubesat - Genesat. This began the era of low-cost (by NASA standards) science spacecraft that accepted high mission risk in exchange for rapid development, and an inexpensive launch. As the capabilities of Cubesat missions have expanded, the secondary launch market for them has kept pace as primary missions on U.S. launch vehicles have partnered with NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative and its series of Education Launch for Nanosatellites (ELaNA) missions to enable a clearinghouse for Cubesats that demonstrates market demand for reoccurring launches. Now NASA is beginning to target large numbers of mission concepts that utilize the 3U and evolving 6U Cubesat form-factor for high-value science and exploration missions while retaining the high-risk and low-cost management models.
Big Numbers for Small Missions: NASA’s Future with CubeSats
A new paradigm for NASA spacecraft has begun to take hold, leveraging the intersection of advanced commercial technologies, secondary launch opportunities, and very-small packaging - along with a new high-risk posture. NASA has had tremendous historical success with its typical robotic missions to LEO and beyond into the Solar System. However, the traditional low-risk mission approach to maximize science return can lead to significantly increased costs and drive even more complexity into the systems and missions. In this paper, we assess an alternate approach for NASA to greatly lower costs, by accepting higher mission risks, and using established engineering capabilities to achieve worthwhile science return and technology advancement - the Cubesat. The Cubesat format was developed by Universities as a educational framework to teach spacecraft engineering through the simplification of the satellite's infrastructure and design. This enabled teams to produce a workable satellite at a rapid pace and low cost, with a pre-defined launcher-payload interface that takes away the engineering for mating the satellite with a launcher. In 2006, NASA launchedit¹s first scientifically viable Cubesat - Genesat. This began the era of low-cost (by NASA standards) science spacecraft that accepted high mission risk in exchange for rapid development, and an inexpensive launch. As the capabilities of Cubesat missions have expanded, the secondary launch market for them has kept pace as primary missions on U.S. launch vehicles have partnered with NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative and its series of Education Launch for Nanosatellites (ELaNA) missions to enable a clearinghouse for Cubesats that demonstrates market demand for reoccurring launches. Now NASA is beginning to target large numbers of mission concepts that utilize the 3U and evolving 6U Cubesat form-factor for high-value science and exploration missions while retaining the high-risk and low-cost management models.
