AIAA Small Satellite Technical Committee (SmSTC) News and Announcements
February 2022
STUDENT AWARD WINNERS FROM SCITECH 2021
SciTech announces the following Student Award winners for Best Paper:
“Novel Approaches to Environmental Shielding for Small Satellites” (AIAA-2021-0806)
Coen J. Williams, Johnathan W. Ford, Jonathon L.Gabriel, Kaleb D. Overby, and Michael L. Anderson, United States Air Force Academy; Jason H. Niebuhr, SAFE, Inc.
“Formation Flying Orbit and Control Concept for the VISORS Mission” (AIAA-2021-0423)
Adam Koenig and Simone D’Amico, Stanford University; and E. Glenn Lightsey, Georgia Institute of Technology
“Adaptive Double-Layer Continuous Super-Twisting Control of a Satellite Formation” (AIAA-2021-0560)
Mason Nixon, Leidos; Yuri B. Shtessel, University of Alabama, Huntsville
“Quantifying Characterizations of CubeSat Swarms Based on Chaotic Circuit Analysis” (AIAA-2021-1255)
Chandler Nichols and John Baker, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa; Jeffrey W. Hudack, Air Force Research Laboratory
October 2021
2021 SMALLSAT MISSION OF THE YEAR AWARD RECIPIENTS
The Small Satellite Mission of the Year award was presented at the Annual American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and Utah State University Small Satellite Conference, which was held virtually on August 7-12, 2021. This award is presented annually to a mission that has demonstrated a significant improvement in the capability of small satellites. NASA Ames Research Center’s TechEdSat-10 mission won the “Mission of the Year” award. The mission was selected out of six finalists by the AIAA Small Satellite Technical Committee with input from a popular vote.
TechEdSat-10 is a research and technology demonstration spacecraft that was built by early-career engineers, including partners and associates from NASA Ames, NOAA, San Jose State University (SJSU), University of California Davis, University of Idaho, University of Florida, and Smith College, in less than a year. TechEdSat-10 contains 150 watt-hours of power storage, eight radios, nine processors, and a graphics processing unit. Additionally, the small satellite carries four cameras, including a stereoscopic virtual reality camera experiment, and a payload demonstrating the exo-brake technology, which designed to increase drag and take the small satellite out of orbit. TechEdSat-10 achieved comprehensive success and re-entered on 15-Mar-2021, following a command to activate its exo-brake on 15-Feb-2021.
Congratulations to the TechEdSat-10 team and to all of the Mission of the Year finalists!
In addition, this year the conference held its third student poster competition (not to be confused with the larger Frank J. Redd student paper and presentation competition). The 2021 Student Poster Award results are as follows:
1st Place
Development of an Operating Strategy for On-Demand Earth Observation Missions of the Diwata-2 Microsatellite Edgar Violan, Yuji Sato, Yuji Sakamoto, Shinya Fujita, Julie Banatao, Toshinori Kuwahara, Kazuya Yoshida – Tohoku University
2nd Place
Real-Time Satellite Component Recognition with YOLO-V5 Trupti Mahendrakar, Ryan White, Markus Wilde, Brian Kish – Florida Institute of Technology; Isaac Silver – Energy Management Aerospace
3rd Place
Automated Fault-Detection for Small Satellite Pointing Control Systems Using One-Sided Learning Yujia Huang, Philip Ferguson – University of Manitoba
July 2021
AIAA SMALLSAT 2021 MISSION OF THE YEAR NOMINATIONS ARE NOW OPEN
The AIAA Small Satellite Technical Committee (SmSTC) invites nominations for candidates for this year’s sixth annual SmallSat Mission of the Year Award. The deadline to nominate and “second” nominations is Friday, July 30, 2021.
You can email awards_chair@aiaa-smstc.org directly with your nomination (with the mission name and a brief one-paragraph description), or if you would like to submit recommendations anonymously or second a current nomination, please use: https://forms.gle/65N7ooLt5igMLrMe7. Nominees so far include ANDESITE, TechEdSat-10, DeMi, Capella (2, 3, 4, and 6 combined), ICEYE (X6, X7, X8, X9, and X10 combined), Lynk 04, and OSM 1 CICERO. Add your mission to the list!
The following databases may be useful: 1) https://sites.google.com/a/slu.edu/swartwout/home/cubesat-database 2) https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sat/cubesat.htm
The Small Satellite Mission of the Year Award is presented annually to the mission that has demonstrated a significant improvement in the capability of small satellites. Eligible missions must have individual satellite wet mass of less than 150 kg, and must have launched, established communication, and have acquired results from on-orbit after January 1, 2020 00:00:00 UTC. To demonstrate “significant improvement,” nominations must show innovation in: spacecraft structural design, scientific instrument development, communications capability, attitude determination and control capability, intersatellite coordination, constellation or cluster management, onboard computing, or other mission aspects. The judges may consider missions with earlier launch dates that had delayed ISS deployments or extensive on-orbit checkout periods, on a case-by-case basis.
The SmSTC will use your nominations to generate a short list of finalists. The finalists will be notified and their mission descriptions will be on the voting page that will be live at the opening of The Small Satellite Conference. The SmallSat Mission of the Year organizers will send an email to conference attendees after the Pre-Conference Workshop with a link to the final voting webpage, asking the community to vote and rank the finalists. Voting is open to the public and not limited to Conference attendees and will close at 11:59 pm on Wednesday August 11th. The Small Satellite Technical Committee selects the winner, informed by the public vote. The winner will be announced at SmallSat on Thursday August 12th.
Your nominations will help us to capture the exciting innovations and achievements of the Small Satellite community. They will help to communicate the cutting-edge efforts of recent and ongoing missions and lead to interesting discussions that will educate both the experts and the newcomers to the community.
June 2020
AIAA SMALL SATELLITE TECHNICAL COMMITTEE SEEKS NOMINATIONS FOR CANDIDATES FOR 2019 MISSION OF THE YEAR AWARD
The AIAA Small Satellite Technical Committee will use your nominations to generate a short list of finalists, who will be notified and given the opportunity to contribute to their mission description on the voting webpage. Conference attendees will receive an email at the Pre-Conference Workshop with a link to the final voting webpage, where they are invited to vote and rank the finalists. Voting is open to the public (not limited to Conference attendees), and will close at 11:59 pm on Wednesday, August 5. The Small Satellite Technical Committee will then select the winner, informed by the public vote, and will announce the award at the Conference on Thursday, August 6.
August 2019
MARS CUBE ONE (MarCO) WINS SMALLSAT “MISSION OF THE YEAR” AWARD AT 2019 AAIA/USU SMALLSAT CONFERENCE
|
The MarCO mission involved a pair of 6U CubeSats that launched and deployed on May 5th, 2018 with the InSight Mars lander mission out of Vandenburg Air Force Base. These were the first two CubeSats successfully operated in interplanetary space, culminating in a Mars flyby for both vehicles on Nov. 26, 2018 after a 450,000,000 km journey. As a deep space technology pathfinder, both spacecraft achieved >7 months of deep space travel; developed and demonstrated planetary protection techniques for CubeSats; performed trajectory correction maneuvers to aim for precision Mars flyby (nine total maneuvers between two spacecraft); completed deep space navigation and communication with the Deep Space Network, new Iris deep-space transponder, and a novel reflectarray high gain antenna; and used solar radiation pressure on deployables for onboard momentum management.
As the first CubeSats to leave low-Earth-orbit, the MarCO spacecraft pioneered new technology and techniques for interplanetary small spacecraft. Much of the onboard hardware and software has been already adopted by upcoming missions heading to deep space. The MarCO spacecraft served as trailblazers and their successful mission leaves a strong legacy for all the missions to follow.
Congratulations to the MarCO team and all of the finalists!
Read more about MarCO here: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cubesat/missions/marco.php
|
August 2019
WINNERS OF THE FIRST AIAA/USU SMALLSAT CONFERENCE STUDENT POSTER COMPETITION
|
This year at the AIAA/USU SmallSat Conference, we had our first student poster competi-tion (not to be confused with the larger Frank J. Redd student paper and presentation competition). Many thanks to Science and Technology Corp. (STC) for sponsoring a small cash prize to the winners.
First place went to the poster “Effective Small-Satellite Radiation Assurance for Non-Specialists,” with the following authors representing Vanderbilt University: Rebekah Austin, Arthur Witulski, Brian Sierawski, Nag Mahadevan, Gabor Karsai, Robert Reed, and Ron Schrimpf.
Second place went to the poster “Pre-flight Testing of AQUARIUS: the Water Resistojet Thruster on the SLS EM-1 CubeSat for Deep Space Exploration from Keita Nishii, Hiroyuki Koizumi, Jun Asakawa, Akihiro Hattori, Kosei Kikuchi, Mariko Akiyama, Qihang Wang, and Masaya Murohara, all from the University of Tokyo.
There was a tie for third place, between the following teams: “Development of a High-Altitude Balloon CubeSat Platform for Small Satellite Education and Research,” submitted by Jill Davis, Alexander Reynolds, Yezad Anklesaria, Henry Pernicka, and Jillian Schmidt, of Missouri University of Science and Technology and “A 3U Cubesat Platform for Plant Growth Experiments,” from Rochester Institute of Technology, Jared Loewenthal, Spencer Bradshaw, Laura Branch, Sandra Connelly, Jeffrey Mills, and Dorin Patru.
Well done, to all the contestants!
|
April 2019
AIAA Small Satellite Technical Committee (SmSTC) Seeks Nominations for Candidates for 2019 Mission of the Year Award
The AIAA Small Satellite Technical Committee (SmSTC) invites nominations for candidates for the fifth annual SmallSat Mission of the Year Award. Nominations must be received not later than Friday, Aug. 2, 2019. Please visit https://tinyurl.com/yxmy2bmn to view a list of suggested nominations or submit an anonymous recommendation. You may also submit your nomination directly to awards_chair@aiaa-smstc.org.
Nominators are encouraged to write in nominees that are not included on the list of suggstions. The following databases may be useful for selecting nominees:
https://sites.google.com/a/slu.edu/swartwout/home/cubesat-database
https://www.klofas.com/comm-table/
https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sat/cubesat.htm
The AIAA SmSTC Mission of the Year Award is presented annually to the mission that has demonstrated a significant improvement in the capability of small satellites. Eligible missions must have individual satellite wet mass of less than 150 kg, and must have launched, established communication, and have acquired results from on-orbit after Jan. 1, 2018 00:00:00 UTC. To demonstrate “significant improvement,” nominations must show innovation in: spacecraft structural design, scientific instrument development, communications capability, attitude determination and control capability, intersatellite coordination, constellation or cluster management, onboard computing, or other mission aspects. The judges may consider missions with earlier launch dates that had delayed ISS deployments or extensive on-orbit checkout periods, on a case-by-case basis.
The SmSTC will generate a short list of finalists based on the submitted nominations. Finalists will be notified and given the opportunity to contribute to their mission description on the voting webpage. Conference attendees will receive an email at the Pre-Conference Workshop with a link to the final voting webpage, where they are invited to vote and rank the finalists. Voting is open to the public (not limited to Conference attendees), and will close at 11:59 pm on Wednesday, Aug. 7. The Small Satellite Technical Committee will then select the winner, informed by the public vote, and will announce the award at the Conference on Thursday, Aug. 8.
Judges and Sponsors Needed for New AIAA Small Satellite Technical Committee (SmSTC) Student Poster Competition at the 2019 SmallSat Pre-Conference Workshop
To highlight and recognize the efforts and accomplishments of student research projects, the AIAA Small Satellite Technical Committee (SmSTC) is hosting a new student poster competition that will take place during the Pre-Conference Workshop poster-viewing sessions on Saturday, August 3 and Sunday, August 4, 2019. This poster competition is separate from the long-standing Frank J. Redd Competition during SmallSat. The Poster Competition will award certificates and small cash prizes to the top three posters. Students participating in the poster competition are expected to be first author and to be present at their poster during poster viewing times, to engage with the (unidentified) judges.
Interested Sponsors and Volunteer Judges should contact kcahoy@mit.edu by 11:59 pm on Thursday, August 1, 2019. Awards will be presented at the Conference on Thursday, August 8.
August 2018
AAIA Small Satellite Technical Committee Seeks Nominations for Candidates for 2018 Mission of the Year Award
The AIAA Small Satellite Technical Committee invites nominations for candidates for the fourth annual SmallSat Mission of the Year Award by Friday, August 3, 2018. Please visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/7H9YZX2 to view a list of suggested nominations or to submit an anonymous recommendation. You may also submit your nomination directly to eclements@mit.edu.
At the link provided above, you may also write in nominees that are not included on the list of suggestions. The following databases may be useful for this:
1) https://sites.google.com/a/slu.edu/swartwout/home/cubesat-database
2) https://www.klofas.com/comm-table/
3) https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sat/cubesat.htm
This award is presented annually to the mission that has demonstrated a significant improvement in the capability of small satellites. Eligible missions must have individual satellite wet mass of less than 150 kg, and must have launched, established communication, and have acquired results from on-orbit after January 1, 2017 00:00:00 UTC. To demonstrate “significant improvement,” nominations must show innovation in: spacecraft structural design, scientific instrument development, communications capability, attitude determination and control capability, intersatellite coordination, constellation or cluster management, onboard computing, or other mission aspects. The judges may consider missions with earlier launch dates that had delayed ISS deployments or extensive on-orbit checkout periods, on a case-by-case basis.
The AIAA Small Satellite Technical Committee will use your nominations to generate a short list of finalists, who will be notified and given the opportunity to contribute to their mission description on the voting webpage. Conference attendees will receive an email at the Pre-Conference Workshop with a link to the final voting webpage, where they are invited to vote and rank the finalists. Voting is open to the public (not limited to Conference attendees), and will close at 11:59 pm on Wednesday, August 8. The Small Satellite Technical Committee will then select the winner, informed by the public vote, and will announce the award at the Conference on Thursday, August 9.
_______________________________________________________________________
August 2017
NASA’s Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) Wins 2017 AIAA/USU SmallSat Conference “Mission of the Year” Award
NASA’s Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) won the “Mission of the Year” award at the 31st Annual American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and Utah State University Small Satellite Conference held in Logan, Utah on August 5-10, 2017. This award is presented annually to a mission that has demonstrated a significant improvement in the capability of small satellites. Over 1,200 small satellite enthusiasts voted for this year’s 10 small satellite nominees, which were selected by the experts on the AIAA SmallSat technical committee.
CYGNSS, a constellation of eight microsatellite spacecraft built and operated by the University of Michigan (U-M) and Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), was launched into low-inclination, low-Earth orbit over the tropics in December 2016. CYGNSS is the first spaceborne NASA Earth Venture-class mission, part of NASA’s Earth Science System Pathfinder program. “It is very rewarding that we were selected by such a large number of peers and colleagues in the smallsat community,” said SwRI’s Randy Rose, who accepted the award on behalf of the CYGNSS team and Principal Investigator Dr. Christopher Ruf. “I think we’ll be seeing a paradigm shift toward more small satellite science constellations like CYGNSS in the future.”
CYGNSS makes frequent measurements of ocean surface winds to monitor the location, intensity, size, and development of tropical cyclones, particularly how they intensify. In recent decades, forecasters have greatly improved models that predict the path of hurricanes, but the ability to predict a storm’s rapidly changing intensity has lagged. CYGNSS will provide the data necessary to enable significant improvement of this key piece of the puzzle.
U-M leads the CYGNSS science investigation. SwRI’s office in Boulder, Colorado, hosts the mission operations center, which commands the spacecraft, collects the telemetry, and transmits the data to the U-M science operations center.
Another NASA small satellite mission came in second place with strong support, the Radiometer Assessment using Vertically Aligned Nanotubes (RAVAN). RAVAN, led by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and funded through the NASA In-Space Validation of Earth Science Technologies (InVEST) program, is a 3U CubeSat that has been operational on orbit since November 2016. It uses four small, accurate, radiometers to measure the Earth’s outgoing radiation across the entire spectrum of energy, while demonstrating use of carbon nanotube absorbers and gallium black body phase change cells for calibration to determine the long-term stability of the measurement for climate science.
_______________________________________________________________________
July 2017
Call for Nominations for the AIAA SmallSat Mission of the Year Award
The AIAA Small Satellite Technical Steering Committee invites nominations for candidates for this year’s fourth annual SmallSat Mission of the Year Award by Friday, August 4th. Please email kcahoy@mit.edu directly with your nomination (use subject: Mission of the Year 2017), or if you would like to submit recommendations anonymously, please use:<https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MNTN56Q>.
The AIAA SmSTC Small Satellite Mission of the Year Award is awarded annually to the mission that demonstrates a significant improvement in the capability of small satellites. Eligible missions will have launched, established communication, and acquired initial results from on-orbit since January 1, 2016. Eligible missions must have individual satellite wet mass of ~100 kg. “Significant improvement” includes innovations in: spacecraft structural design, scientific instrument development, communications capability, attitude determination and control capability, intersatellite coordination, constellation or cluster management, onboard computing, and others. The panel of judges may allow missions with earlier launch dates that had delayed ISS deployments or extensive on-orbit checkout periods to qualify on a case-by-case basis.
Note that there are fields where you may write in nominees that were not included on the list. The following databases may be useful:
1) https://sites.google.com/a/slu.edu/swartwout/home/cubesat-database
2) https://www.klofas.com/comm-table/
3) https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sat/cubesat.htm
The Technical Steering Committee will use nominations to generate a short list of finalists. The finalists will be notified and contribute to their mission description on the voting page that will be live at the opening of The SmallSatellite Conference (August 5-11, 2017). The SmallSat organizers will send an e-mail to conference attendees starting at the Pre-Conference Workshop with a link to the final voting webpage, asking the community to vote and rank the finalists. Voting will close at 11:59 pm on Wednesday, August 9th, and the winner will be announced at the Conference on Thursday, August 10th.
Your nominations will help us to capture the exciting innovations and achievements of the Small Satellite community, communicating the cutting-edge efforts of recent and ongoing missions and leading to interesting discussions that educate both the experts and the newcomers to the community.