Project Management

Team Enrollment

Systems

The CUSat Satellite project employs Systems Engineering extensively. The Systems group is largely responsible for providing the project with direction by creating top level system requirements, creating best practices, maintaining communications, making design choices, and creating processes for creating a successful product. Each of the subsystem leads also participates as a member of the Systems group, which allows the project to maintain consistency and focus.

Integration and Testing

The I&T team is responsible for enabling rapid integration and testing of CUSat. I&T is also responsible for testing CUSat in Cornell University's thermal vacuum chamber.

ADCNS

The Attitude Determination, Control, and Navigation Subsystem (ADCNS) executes the relative navigation that will be used for CUSat's in-orbit inspection procedures. CUSat will primarily be using three GPS boards for attitude determination. For attitude control, CUSat will be using pulsed-plasma thrusters (PPTs) and torque coils. The software portion of ADCNS will consist of the relative navigation algorithms, which will run the various modes of operation defined by the CONOPs.

Camera

The camera team is responsible for acquiring images while in orbit, compressing them in a modified JPEG format, and relaying them to the onboard computer, C&DH.

Command and Data Handling

C&DH is the central hub for communication and computation on the satellite. Using a commercial off the shelf (COTS) single board computer running Windows CE and C++, C&DH will execute the ADCNS algorithms and flight code.

GPS

The GPS team is responsible for the GPS receivers, antennas and algorithms used to calculate sub-centimeter relative positioning.

Ground Segment

The Ground Segment is responsible for the ground operations of the satellite, including ground to satellite communication, tracking and commanding.

Harness

The Harness subsystem is responsible for satellite wiring, the electronics backplane, the electrical interface boards, and any System level electrical concerns.

Industry Relations

The Industry Relations team is responsible for marketing CUSat and seeking commercial and academic sponsorship. If you are interested in sponsoring our project, please see our sponsors page.

Propulsion

The propulsion team is responsible for CUSat's pulsed plasma thrusters (PPTs) which give each satellite three degrees of translational freedom and three degrees of rotational freedom.

Power

The power team is responsible for harnessing solar energy, storing it, and distributing it throughout the satellite.

Structures

The structures team is responsible for designing, analyzing, and manufacturing the body of the satellite as well as the logistics of the internal components.

Survivability

The Survivability team is responsible for analyzing and controlling the satellite's thermal, electrical and vibrational environment on the ground, during launch, and in orbit. Analyzed effects include ESD, atomic oxygen effects, venting and outgassing.

Telemetry and Command

T&C is responsible for intersatellite communications as well as satellite to ground communications. T&C uses modified commercial radios operating in amateur frequency bands to transmit images taken by the satellites to the ground station.