Session
Technical Session III: Year in Review
Abstract
The first European Space Agency In-Orbit Demonstration CubeSat was designed, integrated and launched in less than 1 year by GomSpace. The satellite was designed according to a CubeSat-specific tailoring of the ESA ECSS Engineering standards. This tailored standard, in parallel with next-generation COTS subsystems, allowed GomSpace to achieve this compressed schedule without compromising the technical scope of the mission.
The GOMX-3 3U CubeSat deployed from the International Space Station on October 5, 2015 and immediately started a compressed commissioning schedule for its bus and advanced payloads. After 24 hours on-orbit, the downlink was increased to 19.2 kbps to take advantage of the excellent communication capability. Its helical ADS-B antenna was deployed on day 2 of on-orbit operations and began collecting thousands of aircraft positions each day. After 96 hours on orbit, the satellite entered 3-axis control. In the weeks that followed, GOMX-3 used its 1 degree pointing capability to track nadir, ram, ground stations, and geostationary satellites. In addition, it successfully demonstrated its high-speed X-band downlink capability (based on a transmitter & antenna from Syrlinks and funded by CNES) using a CNES ground station located in Kourou, FG. Finally, GOMX-3 successfully demonstrated its powerful software-defined radio via a spectrum analysis of L-band signals in its ISS-like orbit.
The satellite continues to operate with no loss of functionality. It is a success because of the vast reconfigurability of its subsystems, which use a variety of tools (parameter system, on-orbit image upload, watchdogs, distributed network topology) to ensure mission success given tight schedule constraints. The satellite has remained active enough to necessitate the development of an optimization tool to best determine payload scheduling given geometric and target constraints, which are realized via rapid attitude maneuvering (up to 7 target changes per orbit). This paper presents a detailed review of the GOMX-3 mission, on-orbit experiences, and lessons learnt with the SmallSat community.
GOMX-3: Mission Results from the Inaugural ESA In-Orbit Demonstration CubeSat
The first European Space Agency In-Orbit Demonstration CubeSat was designed, integrated and launched in less than 1 year by GomSpace. The satellite was designed according to a CubeSat-specific tailoring of the ESA ECSS Engineering standards. This tailored standard, in parallel with next-generation COTS subsystems, allowed GomSpace to achieve this compressed schedule without compromising the technical scope of the mission.
The GOMX-3 3U CubeSat deployed from the International Space Station on October 5, 2015 and immediately started a compressed commissioning schedule for its bus and advanced payloads. After 24 hours on-orbit, the downlink was increased to 19.2 kbps to take advantage of the excellent communication capability. Its helical ADS-B antenna was deployed on day 2 of on-orbit operations and began collecting thousands of aircraft positions each day. After 96 hours on orbit, the satellite entered 3-axis control. In the weeks that followed, GOMX-3 used its 1 degree pointing capability to track nadir, ram, ground stations, and geostationary satellites. In addition, it successfully demonstrated its high-speed X-band downlink capability (based on a transmitter & antenna from Syrlinks and funded by CNES) using a CNES ground station located in Kourou, FG. Finally, GOMX-3 successfully demonstrated its powerful software-defined radio via a spectrum analysis of L-band signals in its ISS-like orbit.
The satellite continues to operate with no loss of functionality. It is a success because of the vast reconfigurability of its subsystems, which use a variety of tools (parameter system, on-orbit image upload, watchdogs, distributed network topology) to ensure mission success given tight schedule constraints. The satellite has remained active enough to necessitate the development of an optimization tool to best determine payload scheduling given geometric and target constraints, which are realized via rapid attitude maneuvering (up to 7 target changes per orbit). This paper presents a detailed review of the GOMX-3 mission, on-orbit experiences, and lessons learnt with the SmallSat community.
