Nanosatellite
CubeSat for Solar Particles
The CuSP Team delivers the Cubesat to NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Shown are (left to right) Mike Epperly, Project Manager, Don George, Mission Engineer, and Chad Loeffler, Flight Software Engineer.
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Names
| CuSP
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Mission type
| Technology demonstration
, reconnaissance, Space Weather
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Operator
| Goddard Space Flight Center
(GSFC)
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Mission duration
| 81 minutes 6 seconds
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Spacecraft
| CubeSat
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Spacecraft type
| 6U
CubeSat
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Bus
| SwRI Custom Design
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Manufacturer
| Southwest Research Institute
(SwRI)
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Launch mass
| 10.2 kg (22 lb)
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Dimensions
| 10 cm × 20 cm × 30 cm
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Power
| 45.46
watts
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Launch date
| 16 November 2022, 06:47:44 UTC
[1]
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Rocket
| SLS Block 1
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Launch site
| KSC
,
LC-39B
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Contractor
| NASA
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Last contact
| 16 November 2022
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Reference system
| Heliocentric orbit
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Suprathermal Ion Spectrograph (SIS)
Miniaturized Electron and Proton Telescope (
MERiT
)
Vector Helium
Magnetometer
(VHM)
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CubeSat for Solar Particles
(
CuSP
) was a low-cost 6U
CubeSat
to orbit the
Sun
to study the dynamic
particles
and
magnetic fields
.
[2]
[3]
The principal investigator for CuSP is Mihir Desai, at the
Southwest Research Institute
(SwRI) in
San Antonio
,
Texas
.
[2]
It was launched on the maiden flight of the
Space Launch System
(SLS), as a secondary payload of the
Artemis 1
mission on 16 November 2022.
[1]
[4]
Following deployment from the Artemis launch adaptor, contact with the spacecraft showed that it successfully stabilized and deployed its solar arrays, but contact was long after about an hour.
[5]
Objective
[
edit
]
Measuring
space weather
that can create a wide variety of effects at
Earth
, from interfering with radio communications to tripping up satellite electronics to creating electric currents in power grids, is of importance. To create a network of
space weather
stations would require many instruments scattered throughout space millions of miles apart, but the cost of such a system is prohibitive.
[2]
Though the
CubeSats
can only carry a few instruments, they are relatively inexpensive to launch because of their small mass and standardized design. Thus, CuSP also was intended as a test for creating a network of space science stations.
[2]
The CuSP team
[
edit
]
CuSP Spacecraft Team:
[6]
Dr. Mihir Desai, PhD: Principal Investigator
Mike Epperly: Project Manager
Dr. Don George, PhD: Mission System Engineer
Chad Loeffler: Flight Software Engineer
Raymond Doty: Spacecraft Technician
Dr. Frederic Allegrini, PhD: SIS Instrument Lead
Dr. Neil Murphy, PhD: VHM Instrument Lead
Dr. Shrikanth Kanekal, PhD, MERiT Instrument Lead
Payload
[
edit
]
This CubeSat carried three scientific instruments:
[2]
[3]
- The Suprathermal Ion Spectrograph (
SIS
), is built by the
Southwest Research Institute
to detect and characterize low-energy
solar energetic particles
.
- Miniaturized Electron and Proton Telescope (
MERiT
), is built by the NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and will return counts of high-energy solar energetic particles.
- Vector Helium Magnetometer (
VHM
), being built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will measure the strength and direction of magnetic fields.
- Propulsion
The satellite features a
cold gas thruster
system for propulsion,
attitude control
(orientation) and orbital maneuvering.
[7]
Spacecraft bus
[
edit
]
The spacecraft's bus consisted of:
[6]
- SwRI Spacecraft Integrator: Design, Assembly, Integration and Test
- SwRI SATYR Command and Data Handling Unit
- SwRI Flight Software
- Clyde-Space AAC Electrical Power System
- BCR MPPT converters
- LiPo Batteries and
- Deployable and Fixed Solar Arrays
- VACCO MiPS Cold Gas Thruster
- Blue Canyon Technologies XACT ADCS with Integrated Thruster Control
- SwRI Spacecraft Structure Mechanical and Thermal (SMT)
- NASA JPL/SDL IRIS X-Band Deep Space Transponder
- NASA GSFC Mission Operations Center
- NASA Deep Space Network Ground Communication
Flight results - a qualified success
[
edit
]
- After a successful launch of the SLS at 1:47 am EST on November 16 2022, The Orion/ICPS performed a Trans-Lunar Injection and separated.
- Shortly thereafter, CuSP was deployed from its launch canister in the ICPS.
- Twenty-three minutes after deployment, DSN received Open Loop Receiver (OLR) telemetry from CuSP indicated it had booted up, detumbled, deployed solar arrays, and assumed a SAFE, Sun-pointing, orientation.
- It was operating perfectly until...
- OLR monitoring of the radio signal indicated that the transmitter carrier signal vanished after transmitting for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
- No cause has been determined for this end of transmission.
- Multiple attempts to receive additional signals from the spacecraft failed through the end of 2022. No contact was made.
- The CuSP team fully investigated a sudden battery temperature increase and found it was a telemetry failure. This was verified by comparing redundant indications of several parameters. The redundant indications did not show the suspected excursion. This failure was proven to be the failure of a temperature monitor which saturated the ADC inputs of several signals, but not their redundant monitors fed to an independent ADC.
- The CuSP team fully investigated an anomalous high IRIS Radio temperature. JPL IRIS engineers traced it to a failure to update a scaling equation in the SMOC EGSE. Once the updated equation was applied, the temperature fell in line with all others.
- Plans were to make another attempt during an expected focal convergence, however, no further contact attempts were made to contact the spacecraft.
- Official End Of Mission was declared December 2023.
- D.I.P. CuSP (Drift In Peace)
Gallery
[
edit
]
-
CuSP is instrumented and placed in the Thermal Vacuum Chamber.
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Dr. Mihir Desai, Principal Investigator, seen with CuSP
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Dr. Don George, Mission Engineer, braved Covid-19 to test the Electrical Power System (EPS) on CuSP.
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Dr. Gumby presenting the post deployment sequence of operations of CuSP to a NASA review panel.
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CuSP weighs-in at a 'wet mass' of 10.2 kg, well within the 14 kg mass limit.
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The 'Purple Hands' verify that CuSP fits into its dispenser. This dispenser pushes CuSP out of the launch vehicle.
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The Principal Technician for CuSP, Raymond Doty, makes final 'Pack and Ship' preparations for CuSP.
See also
[
edit
]
The 10
CubeSats
flying in the
Artemis 1
mission
References
[
edit
]
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Exploration
programs
| |
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Active
missions
| Orbiters
| |
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Landers
| |
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Rovers
| |
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Flybys
| |
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Past
missions
| |
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Planned
missions
| |
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Proposed
missions
| |
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Cancelled /
concepts
| |
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Related
| |
---|
- Missions are ordered by launch date. Crewed missions are in
italics
.
|
|
---|
January
|
- Starlink G4-5
(49 satellites)
- ION-SCV 004
(
LabSat
,
STORK-1
,
STORK-2
,
SW1FT
),
Capella 7
,
Capella 8
,
ICEYE X14
,
ICEYE X16
,
USA-320
,
USA-321
,
USA-322
,
USA-323
,
DEWA SAT-1
,
Flock 4x
× 44,
Kepler
× 4,
Lemur-2
× 5,
Nepal PQ-1
- Lemur-2
Krywe
,
STORK-3
,
TechEdSat-13
,
Unicorn-1
,
Unicorn-2
× 4
- Shiyan 13
- Starlink G4-6
(49 satellites)
- USA-324
/
GSSAP-5
,
USA-325
/
GSSAP-6
- CSG-2
|
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February
| |
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March
| |
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April
| |
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May
|
- SpaceBEE
× 16,
SpaceBEE NZ
× 8,
Unicorn-2F
- Jilin-1 Kuanfu-01C
,
Jilin-1 Gaofen-03D
× 7
- Starlink G4-17
(53 satellites)
- Tianzhou 4
- Jilin-1 Mofang-01A
†
- Starlink G4-13
(53 satellites)
- Starlink G4-15
(53 satellites)
- Starlink G4-18
(53 satellites)
- Kosmos 2556
/ Bars-M 3L
- Boe OFT-2
- ION-SCV 006
(
SBUDNIC
),
SHERPA AC1
,
Vigoride-3
,
ICEYE
× 5,
NuSat
× 4,
Lemur-2
× 5,
Platform 1
,
PTD-3
|
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June
| |
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July
| |
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August
| |
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September
| |
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October
| |
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November
|
- LDPE-2
,
USA-339
/ Shepherd Demonstration,
USA-340
,
USA-341
,
USA-344
/ USUVL
- Kosmos 2563
/
EKS-6
- Hotbird 13G
- MATS
- ChinaSat 19
- Cygnus NG-18
(
SpaceTuna1
)
- NOAA-21
,
LOFTID
- Yunhai-3 01
- Tianzhou 5
- Galaxy 31
,
Galaxy 32
- Yaogan 34-03
- Jilin-1 Gaofen-03D
× 5
- Artemis 1
(
ArgoMoon
,
BioSentinel
,
CuSP
,
EQUULEUS
,
LunaH-Map
,
Lunar IceCube
,
LunIR
,
Near-Earth Asteroid Scout
,
OMOTENASHI
,
Team Miles
)
- Eutelsat 10B
- EOS-06 /
Oceansat-3
,
Astrocast
× 4
- SpaceX CRS-26
- Yaogan 36-03
(3 satellites)
- Kosmos 2564
/
GLONASS-M
761
- Shenzhou 15
- Kosmos 2565
/ Lotos-S1 №6 (
Kosmos 2566
)
- Oceansat-3
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December
| |
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Launches are separated by dots ( ? ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ).
Crewed flights
are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).
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