USNA Satellite Lab/Ground Station

Astronautics OverviewSatellite and communications LabsSatellite Student Design ProjectsGround Station OpsExtracurricular

Bob Bruninga, Ground Station Engineer

April 2008

RAFT & MARScom

Astraonautics Track Overview

8 Faculty in Astronautics (out of 16 total in Aerospace) 3 Full time Civilian Astronautics Faculty (PhD) 2 Full time Military (PhD) .5 Half-time with NASA Faculty (PhD) .5 Half-time Aero (structures) (PhD) 2 Funded Chairs (PhD) 1 Engineer (Labs and Satellite Projects) (MS EE)

Students15-30 Astro(30%) (out of 50-90 in Aerospace Major)

Astronautics Budget

Internal O&M,N $150K Navy Network Warfare $150K (Space Chair, Tech, Support)

External (Gift or Endowment)Heinline Chair $130K (endowed chair)Roger’s Chair $140K (endowed chair)Aerospace Corp $ 50K (ParkinsonSat)Aero Gift Fund $ 5K (Various)

Total Budget about $625K

Satellite Labs

Missions, Orbits, STK Projects

Communications, Links, Antennas

Transmitters, Receivers, Losses

EPS, Electrical Power System

Signals and Telemetry

Thermal Lab

ADCS

Indoor

OutdoorNoise temperature

Antenna Lab

Geo Arc and

9 operating positions

VHF dipole

UHF Satcom

C/Ku band TVRO

Communications, Receivers, Losses

Gain, losses

Amps and LNA’s

Cable losses

Geo-Arc

Beamwidth

Spectrum Analyzer

Downconverters

Demod, Decoding

UFO

Communications, Links, Gain

WavelengthAntenna SizeTypes

Gain, BeamwidthLink BudgetSNR

SWR

Matching

Antenna Lab for Seniors

RF LABsat model on rotor

Rotator and S/A to plot pattern

Dipole 1

Dipole 1

Antenna Phasing experiment

Antenna Link Budget and Gain

Uses small 2.4 GHz camera/transmitters

First observe dipole link (1000’)

Place dipole at dish focus and measure gain

Swing dish to see Beamwidth

Antenna Matching and Plots

Using PI network to match spacecraft antenna for best SWR

Using GPS signals to plot antenna pattern of GPS

EPS Lab

Solar Panels

I-V curves

Distribution

Regulation

Shadowing

RTG demo

EPS LABsat

Design Lab

Begin using LABsats

Telemetry Lab

Sensors

Circuits

Conditioning

Engineering conversion

Decoding

Protocols

Thermal Lab

Conduction

Radiation

Absorbtivity

Emissivity

Insulation

Attitude Control Labs (LABsats)

Can demo all but gravity gradient

ADCS (P-sat Demo)

Actual

Torques

and

Earth’s

Magnetic

Field

US Naval Academy LABsatsLabsats mostly integrated into labs by 2004

Basic USNA’sat

Ham Radio TNC

Terminal Node Controller

$180

Transmitter Tests

Power out

Efficiency

Temperature

Spectrum and EMI

Receiver Tests

Demodulation - FSK

All Seven Student LABsats on the air

Sharing a single TDMA channel

Using FSK for demodulation

Demodulation - PSK

LABsat configured as HF to UHF linear transponder

Indoor LABsat RX

PSK-31 Waterfall Spectrum display on Student’s workstation

Command-Control-Telemetry Ground Stations

Laptop Ground Stations for PCSAT’s, ANDE, RAFT, etc

USNA Satellite Lab/Ground Station

Satellite and communications LabsSatellite Design Projects

Bob Bruninga, Ground Station Engineer

RAFT

PCSAT

MIDSTAR

Satellite Design Projects

NATSweb – 1st Sea-Launch (1997 scrubbed in last week!)

PCsat – Launched Athena 30 Sept 2001Sapphire -- Launched Athena 30 Sept 2001 PCSAT2 – STS-114 26 Jul 06 return to flightARISS – Launched on Progress Aug 2003ANDE – STS-116 21 Dec 06

RAFT1 – STS-116 21 Dec 06MARScom – STS-116 21 Dec 06MIDSTAR - STP-1 9 Mar 07ParkinsonSAT – Commenced Fall 2006

Low-Cost Satellite Design Projects

NATSweb – $ 2k 1st Sea-Launch (1997 scrubbed in last week!)

PCsat – $30k Launched Athena 30 Sept 2001

Sapphire - $?? Launched Athena 30 Sept 2001

PCSAT2 – $35k STS-114 26 Jul 06 return to flight

ARISS – $ 2k Launched on Progress Aug 2003

ANDE – $35k Launched STS-116 21 Dec 06

RAFT1 – $15K Launched STS-116 21 Dec 06

MARScom – $15K Launched STS-116 21 Dec 06

MIDSTAR - $1.8M Launched Atlas-V Mar 07ParkinsonSAT –$50k Commenced Fall 2006

Satellite Design InvolvementPCsat 16 projectsGoodhiew 97, Morgan 98, Lundberg, Scrabeck, Gomez, Melanson, Kollar, Mattera, Ortiz 99 - Burroughs 99, Schwenzer, Nolan, Lawrence, Boutros 2000, Sullivan, Gutweiler 2001, Machinest: Mike Spencer

PCSAT2 8 projects

Otero, Silver, Jones, Kolwicz, Evans, and Henry(03) Operations: Paquette and Robeson(05)

ANDE 8 projectsAaron, Villalbi, and Weisenberg, Kelley, Keller, Harris(03), Patterson, & Ensign Sillman(02)

RAFT1 16 projects Robeson, Paquette (06) - Orloff, Kinzbrunner, and Rose(05) - Baker, Tuttle, Colvin (04)

Abbott, Atwater, Brandt, Hansen, McLean(03). And 3 in (02)

Midstar/ICsat 56 students over 8 years

ParkinsonSAT 21 projectsPapso, Edirisinghe, Icard, Meyer, Phillips(08), - Dendinger, Lewis, Lwin, Campbell, Sydney, Okun, Londono, Smythe, Lindsay, Mayer 07 -Koeppel, Lovick, Paquette, Piggrem, Robeson, Vandegriff (06)

OPERATIONS: EA-204 Intro to Astro (100 students / year). EA-467 Labs (30/yr)

USNA Constellation

PCsat, launched 30 Sept 2001

Team: 6 Students/yr, 2 Profs, 1 Engineer2200 Amateur Satellite Users

Still semi-operational

Current Status

Full recovery after each full-sun period.

Negative power budget due to fail-safe default RX/TX

PCsat Comms Mission

Data Relay (Situational Awareness) for Mobiles and Handheld radios. GPS tracking and LIVE to WEB

Blue Force Tracking

Typical PCsat User Station(Blue Force Tracking)

Typical Pass Display

Internet Linked Ground Stns

www.ariss.net pcsat.aprs.org

Internet Linked Ground Stns

www.ariss.net pcsat.aprs.org

Internet Linked Data Displays

www.ariss.net pcsat.aprs.org

PCsat “Student Operations”

Other Experiments through PCsat

Antarctic WX stationF-16 downed flyer demo (Rome Air Development Center)Arctic Tracking (trucks up frozen rivers >70º Latitude)ISS Joint Ops (2 weeks of constellation flying)USNA Marconi Re-enactment (St Johns Newfoundland)2200 other users worldwide

Air & Space Museum

Donated April 2004 to Smithsonian

For Display

At Dulles

Very short development time Simplicity and off the shelf Educational Project Communications service to Users Telemetry for Space Environment Configuration controlled on the ground

Bob Bruninga

US Naval Academy Satellite Lab

Amateur Satellite Service partnering with DOD and ARISS

PCSAT2, DOD synergy in the Amateur Satellite Service

40 Solar Cell Samples

Latest triple junction technology

NASA/Glen Solar Experiment

MISSE5 – PCSat2 – 26 July

Midshipmen involved in early integration and testing of PCSat2 electronics.

Two views of the initial deployment of MISSE/PCSat by astronaut Soichi Noguchi. It was installed 8 days after the launch of STS-114 (26 July 05)

Satellite Transponders

PCSAT2 LocationReturned August 2006 after a year’s exposure

Global Situational Awareness Network

Handheld

Mobile

Typical User Station

Encourage Schools and Students to get involved in Space

Tiny!

ANDE Satellite

Atmospheric DragUSNA CommsTelemetry - Temperature - Attitude - Laser Control

Joint Project with NRL

Primary Lithium Batteries

ANDE Deployment 21 Dec 2006

Initially FCAL separated from the container, but not ANDE

Radar returns later indicated ANDE separation

ANDE Satellite

ANDE Satellite

ANDE Satellite

Deployed

STS-116 Dec 06

ANDE, CAPE, ICU

RAFT Project (two Satellites)

RAFT-1 (~PCsat)

MARScom

NSSS Radar Fence

216.98 MHz

Stanford Cubesat Projects50 in construction!

AIAA/USU Conference

30% of all papers were related to CUBESATS

Simple LABsat TLM/CMD System

RAFT/MARScom Deployment(SSPL5510)

Stuff Stuff

NAVSPASUR Radar Fence

Daily Bistatic Radar Demonstrations

RAFT Deployment

RAFT Project (MARScom)

UHF AM up

HF SSB downlink

YP Radios

MIDSTAR Mission9 March 2007

Atlas-V EELV

ESPA Ring

ICsat & CFTP

Midn, Mems, Ncnu

S-band

No attitude control

USNA Satellite Lab/Ground Station

Satellite and communications LabsSatellite Design ProjectsGround Station OpsExtracurricular

Bob Bruninga, Ground Station Engineer

PCSAT-1, ANDE/RAFT

12 Meter (AO-40)

C/Ku TVRO (NASA TV)

Teleconferencing

Summer Seminars, Tours

AMSAT Tracking

PCSAT1/2 Telemetry

& Commanding

USNA Satellite Lab/Ground Station

RS0ISS>PP0PP0,SGATE,qAo: Go Army beat Navy!

PCSAT-1>APRS,SGATE,qAo: Go Navy Beat Army!

PCSAT2>APRS,SGATE,qAo: Go Navy Beat Army!

USNA Satellite Lab/Ground Station

Satellite and communications LabsGround Station OpsSatellite Design Projects

Extracurricular

Bob Bruninga, Ground Station Engineer

Other Activities

Space Day (Air&Space)

AMSAT (North America)

Marconi 100th (St Johns)

BSA RadioBadge

School Mentoring

Balloon Tracking

AMSAT OperationsAO-40 Rescue

- PCSAT2

USNA Extracurricular Activities

Annual Moonbounce Event

Football & Boat GPS Tracking, Comms, Imagry, Data, Internet

Imagry

W3ADO, oldest USNA ECA (1928)

Sea Trials

The comm channels can potentially draw from over 30,000 experimenters for easy assessment of loading and scaling issues.

Not only the sensors and users exist, but the global Internet collection and distribution system also exists from PCSAT1 & 2, ANDE and RAFT.

Our Satellites provide a low cost educational transponder supporting not only GPS position reporting but also remote WX stations and other data link experiments and other University and School Experiments.