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Despite their small size, the satellites launching through NASA\u2019s CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) missions have a big impact, creating access to space for many who might not otherwise have the opportunity. One recent mission tells the story of four teams of researchers and engineers who conceived, built, launched, and collected data from these shoebox-sized satellites, helping them answer a host of questions about our planet and the universe.<\/p>\n
The teams\u2019 CubeSats launched as part of the ELaNa 38 (Educational Launch of Nanosatellites) mission, selected by CSLI and assigned to the mission by NASA\u2019s Launch Services Program. A little more than a month after launching aboard SpaceX\u2019s 24th commercial resupply services mission from NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the CubeSats were deployed from the International Space Station on Jan. 26, 2022.<\/p>\n
Being selected by CSLI was an inspirational once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for more than 100 undergraduate students who worked on ELaNA 38\u2019s Get Away Special Passive Attitude Control Satellite (GASPACS) CubeSat.<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of us had ever worked on a project like this, much less built a satellite on our own,\u201d said Jack Danos, team coordinator of Utah State University\u2019s Get Away Special, or GAS Team. \u201cWhen we first heard the audio beacon from our satellite in orbit, we all cheered.\u201d<\/p>\n
It took the GAS Team nearly a decade to develop and build GASPACS \u2013 the team\u2019s first CubeSat \u2013 with many team members graduating in the process. But the team\u2019s focus remained the same \u2013 to deploy and photograph a meter-long inflatable boom, known as the AeroBoom, from its CubeSat in Low Earth orbit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we saw that first photo come through, we were blown away, speechless,\u201d Danos said. \u201cThis had been a decade of work and learning everything required for a real satellite mission \u2013 a lot of us got skills that we never could have gotten in a normal school environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team of college students who built Georgia Tech\u2019s Tethering and Ranging mission (TARGIT) developed it to test an imaging LiDAR system capable of detailed topographic mapping from orbit. TARGIT\u2019s students machined the CubeSat components themselves and integrated several new technologies into the final flight system.<\/p>\n
\u201cCSLI was a great window into how NASA works and the formal processes to ensure the hardware that gets launched meets requirements,\u201d said Dr. Brian Gunter, principal investigator on the Georgia Institute of Technology TARGIT CubeSat. \u201cOur spacecraft would not have made it to orbit without this program.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prior to launch, the Georgia Tech team worked closely with NASA\u2019s CSLI team, gained considerable industry experience, and delivered a flight-ready spacecraft, even after COVID forced a full shutdown of activity for an extended period, during which many key team members graduated.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust getting the spacecraft ready and delivered was the greatest achievement for the group and was a nice example of teamwork and resiliency from the students,\u201d Gunter said.<\/p>\n
Not all ELaNa 38\u2019s CubeSats were student-built. With the goal of studying processes affecting Earth\u2019s upper atmosphere and ionosphere, The Aerospace Corporation\u2019s Daily Atmospheric and Ionospheric Limb Imager (DAILI) CubeSat employed an ambitious forward sunshade that was key to DAILI\u2019s ability to examine atmospheric variations during daytime. As perhaps the most sophisticated sunshade ever flown on a CubeSat, it reduced intense scattered light from the Sun, the Earth\u2019s surface, and low-altitude clouds by a factor of almost a trillion.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only did we have a shade that occupied over half of the space we had on the CubeSat \u2013 we also needed room for the optics, the detector, and for the CubeSat bus,\u201d said Dr. James Hecht, senior scientist at Ionospheric and Atmospheric Sciences at Aerospace and DAILI principal investigator. \u201cThe effectiveness of the shade depended greatly on the length of the shade to the angular field of view of DAILI. It was a challenge, but it worked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rounding out the ELaNa 38 flight was the Passive Thermal Coating Observatory Operating in Low Earth Orbit (PATCOOL) satellite, sponsored by NASA\u2019s Launch Services Program and developed by the Advanced Autonomous Multiple Spacecraft Laboratory at the University of Florida. PATCOOL tested a highly reflective surface coating called \u201csolar white\u201d to measure its efficiency as way to passively cool components in space.<\/p>\n
Through ELaNa 38\u2019s four small satellites, hundreds of individuals \u2013 many developing and launching spacecraft for the first time \u2013 achieved access to space. For NASA, increasing access to space and making data and innovations accessible to all also serves to reinforce the future of the country\u2019s space industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an opportunity that you just can\u2019t get anywhere else \u2013 the ability to send something into space, get the ride paid for, and form relationships within the industry,\u201d Danos said. \u201cThere are so many members of the team that went into the space industry after the mission \u2013 a mission we literally couldn\u2019t have done without NASA\u2019s CSLI.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n