CubeSat for Solar Particles

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]

CuSP Spacecraft Team:[6]

Mihir Desai: Principal Investigator

Mike Epperly: Project Manager

Don George: Mission System Engineer

Chad Loeffler: Flight Software Engineer

Raymond Doty: Spacecraft Technician

Frederic Allegrini: SIS Instrument Lead

Neil Murphy: VHM Instrument Lead

Shrikanth Kanekal, MERiT Instrument Lead

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]

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

• After a successful launch of the SLS at 12:47 am ET, The Orion/ICPS performed a Trans-Lunar Injection and separated.
• Shortly thereafter, CuSP was deployed from its launch canister.
• 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 stopped suddenly 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, and no further contact has yet been 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.
• The CuSP team fully investigated an anomalous high IRIS Radio temperature and found it to only be a GSE scaling problem.
• Additional contact attempts are planned during the third quarter of 2023.

• 
  CuSP is instrumented and placed in the Thermal Vacuum Chamber.
• 
  Dr. Mihir Desai, Principal Investigator, seen with the CuSP
• 
  Dr. Don George, Mission Engineer, testing the Electrical Power System (EPS) on the CuSP.
• 
  Dr. Gumby presenting the post deployment sequence of operations of CuSP to a NASA review panel.
• 
  CuSP weighs-in at a 'wet mass' of 10.2 kg, well within the 14 kg mass limit.
• 
  The 'Purple Hands' verify that CuSP fits into its dispenser. This dispenser pushes CuSP out of the launch vehicle.
• 
  The Principal Technician for CuSP, Raymond Doty, makes final 'Pack and Ship' preparations for CuSP.

The 10 CubeSats flying in the Artemis 1 mission

• Near-Earth Asteroid Scout by NASA was a solar sail spacecraft that was planned to encounter a near-Earth asteroid (mission failure)
• BioSentinel is an astrobiology mission
• LunIR by Lockheed Martin Space
• Lunar IceCube, by the Morehead State University
• CubeSat for Solar Particles (CuSP)
• Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper (LunaH-Map), designed by the Arizona State University
• EQUULEUS, submitted by JAXA and the University of Tokyo
• OMOTENASHI, submitted by JAXA, was a lunar lander (mission failure)
• Cislunar Explorers, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
• Earth Escape Explorer (CU-E³), University of Colorado Boulder