NASA partners with universities for soil-monitoring and optical comms CubeSats

Written by Copernical Team Thursday, 01 August 2024 22:22

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Los Angeles CA (SPX) Aug 01, 2024

NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative is set to send two CubeSats to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the 21st Northrop Grumman commercial resupply mission. CySat-1, developed by students from Iowa State University, will measure Earth's soil moisture from low Earth orbit using a software-defined radiometer. This radiometer processes analog radio signals through software, and stu

NASA partners with universities for soil-monitoring and optical comms CubeSats
by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Aug 01, 2024

NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative is set to send two CubeSats to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the 21st Northrop Grumman commercial resupply mission.

CySat-1, developed by students from Iowa State University, will measure Earth's soil moisture from low Earth orbit using a software-defined radiometer. This radiometer processes analog radio signals through software, and students will write programs to analyze these signals to assess soil moisture levels. As Iowa State University's inaugural CubeSat, CySat-1 will serve as a technology demonstrator for future missions.

Meanwhile, Arizona State University students and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have created DORA (Deployable Optical Receiver Aperture), an innovative CubeSat technology. Unlike previous small satellites that required precision pointing and achieved only low data transmission rates, DORA will demonstrate optical communications without precision pointing. It will use a solid-state photon detector to achieve high data rates via wide-field optical receivers. DORA will measure background light from sources such as sunlight, moonlight, and city lights when it is released from the ISS into low Earth orbit.

Both CySat-1 and DORA are 3U CubeSats, part of a class of small satellites standardized by units called Us. Each unit is approximately 10x10x10 cm and usually weighs less than 2 kilograms. These CubeSats will be deployed from the ISS using the Nanoracks CubeSat Deployer, which is positioned by one of the space station's robotic arms to release the CubeSats into the correct orbit.

The Cygnus spacecraft carrying these CubeSats is scheduled to launch at 11:28 a.m. EDT on Saturday, Aug. 3, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.