Small satellites hold big promise for future of aerospace development

Small is big when it comes to next-generation satellites.

Compact and lightweight, nanosatellites are easier and less expensive to launch than traditional satellites. It’s like pushing a microwave oven into space instead of a minivan.

But the little satellites’ potential is large. NMSU faculty and students are designing and building a small satellite with a robotic arm that could be used – for instance – to grab and dock with another satellite for servicing.

NMSU teams already have two nanosatellite projects completed – one for which they designed the communications system and one that will measure ultraviolet reflections from the earth to learn more about cosmic rays.

As the X Prize Cup competition draws aerospace entrepreneurs to southern New Mexico and the developing Southwest Regional Spaceport, the possibilities for putting small satellites and other student-built payloads into space grow more interesting.

“My vision is to have a stable of student-built payloads here at NMSU” that could fly on rockets and space planes launched from the spaceport, said Stephen Horan, head of NMSU’s Klipsch School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and leader of the university’s aerospace research cluster.

In addition, Horan said, the university can develop the capabilities for testing, preparing – and repairing – payloads built by others for launching at the spaceport.

NMSU’s involvement in nanosatellites began a few years ago when the university teamed with the University of Colorado and Arizona State University on an Air Force-funded project to design and build three nanosatellites that would fly in a constellation. This Three-Corner Satellite Project was designed to use digital cameras to capture stereo images of cloud formations. Launched in late 2004 from Cape Canaveral, Fla., aboard a Delta 4-Heavy rocket built by Boeing, the satellites never made it into orbit because the second stage of the rocket underperformed.

The next nanosatellite project was an all-NMSU venture with a scientific payload important to NASA’s program to search for ultra-high-energy cosmic rays.

“NASA wants to build a large space-based detector to look for ionization tracks made in the atmosphere as cosmic rays pass through,” said Steve Stochaj, the science coordinator on the project.

Because the light given off by the cosmic rays is in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum, designers of the detector need to know how much background ultraviolet radiation is reflected by the earth. The NMSU satellite has two instruments to measure the ultraviolet rays, one that would look into space and one that would look down at the planet. Like the Three-Corner Satellite project, the cosmic ray satellite was funded by the Air Force in its highly competitive university nanosatellite program, but it was not selected for launching.

“We are looking for a ride,” Stochaj said. “We’re talking with the Physical Science Laboratory (at NMSU) about it going as a parasite on an experimental balloon flight.” The PSL launches scientific balloons for NASA, and although a balloon flight would not put the satellite into orbit, it would give the instruments enough time above the earth’s atmosphere to get the desired ultraviolet measurements.

The current project, with the goal of developing a satellite with a robotic arm, is being tackled in stages. Mechanical engineering professor Ou Ma, an expert in robotics, is leading the development of the robotic arm.

“We are in phase one, the engineering design, right now,” said Lee Finley, a graduate student who serves as student
program manager on the project. “Once we complete the engineering design, we go to competition with it, and if it does something meaningful that the Air Force is interested in, it stands a good chance of being selected for building a flight version.”

Finley will leave the project as soon as he finishes his master’s degree and begins a job that he has already secured – as a systems engineer for a space communications company. His involvement in the NMSU nanosatellite program, he said, has provided him with the knowledge, confidence and expertise to acquire such a position.

Karl Hill