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.

Design Trade Study 1

Design Trade Study 1 was a technical analysis with respect to the design of having a Dawgstar satellite inspect a cubesat, which would launch inside the satellite and be ejected from within once in-orbit.

Design Trade Study 2

Design Trade Study 2 was a technical analysis with respect to the design of having two identical satellite shapes, which would launch together and then separate. This design study resulted in the concept of the current CUSat design.

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.

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.