National Aeronautics and Space Administration Volume 13 Issue 4 Summer 2017 www.nasa.gov Volume 13 • Issue 4 • Summer 2017 Dellingr Set to Launch in August R&D-Funded CubeSat Purposely Designed to Improve the Reliability of Small Satellites They named their new-fangled CubeSat after the the six-unit, or 6U, Dellingr will demonstrate the mythological Norse god of the dawn. Now, just vigor of its design, while gathering NASA-quality days from launch, Goddard scientists and engi- data about the sun’s influence on Earth’s upper at- neers are confident Dellingr will live up to its name mosphere using a suite of miniaturized instruments and inaugurate a new era for scientists wanting and components (see related story, page 4). to use small, highly reliable satellites to carry out important, and in some cases, never-before-tried Funded partially by Goddard’s Internal Research science. and Development program, the Dellingr effort began in 2014 in response to growing interest The shoebox-sized spacecraft — the brainchild of among NASA and other government scientists Michael Johnson, the chief technologist of God- who wanted to use CubeSat platforms to carry out dard’s Applied Engineering and Technology Direc- scientific investigations. Originally created by the torate, and scientists with the center’s Heliophys- California Polytechnic State University in 1999 for ics Science Division — is set to launch in August educational purposes, the university-class platform goddard’s emerging technologies goddard’s • aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to the Interna- quickly gained popularity among universities and tional Space Station where it will be deployed later others interested in giving students hands-on into a low-Earth orbit. experience building satellites or gathering edge scientific data. Purposely designed to be relatively inexpensive and more reliable than current CubeSat platforms, Continued on page 3 cutting in this issue: 2 Dellingr Set to Launch in August Summer > 4 R&D Technologies Showcased on Dellingr’s Debut Flight 8 Team Passes Major Milestone for Characterizing Exoplanets 10 Funding Awarded to Advance Dual-CubeSat Mission to Study Lunar Swirls 2017 12 Conceptual CubeSat Mission Focused on Solving Venusian Mystery 14 Technologist Develops Self-Calibrating Magnetometer 16 Special Report: The Goddard Fellows Innovation Challenge > 16 Team Enhances Online Scientific Tool Used by Hundreds Worldwide > 17 Team Miniaturizes Century-Old Technology for Use on CubeSats 18 Altered Realities: Six Virtual and Augmented Reality Pilots Started About the Cover Chuck Clegett, Larry Kepko, and Michael Johnson are part of a team that purposely developed the Dellingr 6U CubeSat to be more reliable than the models commonly used today. The spacecraft, which is carrying three heliophysics-related payloads, among other technologies, will be launched to the International Space Station in August aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The bus already has been baselined for future CubeSat missions. Photo Credit: Bill Hrybyk/NASA You can now share this issue with your friends and colleagues via your own social-media channels. Click the Share button to begin. PAGE 2 https://gsfctechnology.gsfc.nasa.gov Volume 13 • Issue 4 • Summer 2017 In addition to their low cost, CubeSats offered scientists the potential to fly swarms of these tiny platforms around Earth or other solar system bodies to gather simultaneous, multi-point observations — an observ- ing technique not financially feasible with larger, more traditional spacecraft. Although they fulfilled their original academic purpose, scientists soon discovered that despite their huge potential for enabling new types of observations, the university-class CubeSat goddard’s emerging technologies goddard’s goddard’s emerging technologies goddard’s • • did not completely satisfy their needs. edge “A Reliability Issue” edge Image Credit: Bill Hrybyk/NASA Image Credit: “It was a reliability issue,” Johnson said. “While The Dellingr spacecraft is a 6U CubeSat and is shown here at Goddard’s magnetic calibration facility where cutting it underwent testing. It is scheduled for an August 1 launch to the International Space Station where it will cutting adequate, university-class be deployed into a low-Earth orbit. CubeSats weren’t consis- tent with what we wanted to do. We had different expectations,” he added, re- Road to Success Bumpy ferring to the experience of Goddard scientist and Heliophysics Division Chief Technologist Nikolaos Although the team believes it ultimately will suc- Paschalidis. He, along with his team, developed ceed in its pathfinding mission, the road to launch the world’s smallest Ion Neutral Mass Spectrom- wasn’t always smooth. eter for the National Science Foundation’s 3U Within months of starting Dellingr, the team discov- ExoCube 1 mission that launched last year. ered that building a reliable, 6U CubeSat with just Soon after the spacecraft’s launch, mission opera- $1 million in funding — the project’s stated objec- tors realized ExoCube-1 wasn’t communicating tives — was easier said than done. Although the properly, delaying the commissioning of impor- team wanted to keep down costs largely by using tant spacecraft functions. After about six months, commercially available subsystems, it discovered Paschalidis finally confirmed his instrument’s basic that these components didn’t always play well functionality, but the mission abruptly ended due together or work as advertised, requiring additional to computer problems. Using lessons learned, the engineering and technician effort. These glitches foundation plans to launch a follow-on ExoCube-2 extended schedules well past the one-year goal in 2018. and drove up costs. “ExoCube-1 still achieved a lot by validating many They also quickly learned that they would have to functions of the 3U bus and demonstrating the change the way they managed CubeSat missions basic functionality of my instrument. However, the to keep them affordable. So even though they experience put a strong emphasis on the need for missed their cost target, the lessons learned and a robust bus and a complete mission-operations knowledge acquired during development were well scenario,” said Paschalidis, who is flying an worth the additional costs, Johnson said. improved version of his instrument on Dellingr. “It’s a new way of doing things,” said Project Man- “A successful Dellingr mission will give NASA the ager Chuck Clagett. “We were applying old ways of basis for a reliable bus and mission capability to doing things to an emerging capability and it didn’t enable a plethora of future missions.” work very well.” Continued on page 4 https://gsfctechnology.gsfc.nasa.gov PAGE 3 Volume 13 • Issue 4 • Summer 2017 Lessons Learned handling systems, batteries, and other technolo- gies that either can make or break a mission. The From the exercise, the team found a better bal- lessons learned are being applied to a second- ance between management and testing require- generation Dellingr bus, which the team will make ments and the critical need for more mission- available to anyone who wants to use it. enabling technologies, including CubeSat-specific software, Clagett said. The group was further buoyed when NASA se- lected a Goddard team to develop the Plasma Just as important, the team learned the true cost Enhancements in The Ionosphere-Thermosphere of a CubeSat mission, said Goddard heliophysicist Satellite, or petitSat, which will study Earth’s iono- Eftyhia Zesta, who is the lead project investigator sphere using the second-generation Dellingr bus for the Dellingr magnetometers. The university- (CuttingEdge, Spring 2017, Page 22). “We had class, $1-million CubeSat, developed with less high confidence in petitSat’s costs because of the rigorous design and system-engineering practices, Dellingr experience,” said Larry Kepko, a Goddard isn’t a realistic cost for highly reliable CubeSat mis- scientist who is now heading NASA Science Mis- sions, she said. sion Directorate’s small satellite initiative. NASA Already Benefiting “We know how to build large satellite buses,” Kep- goddard’s emerging technologies goddard’s ko continued. “All of our satellite buses last forever. • While Dellingr’s developers await launch, they are heartened that NASA already is benefiting We wanted to do the same thing with CubeSats, from their two-and-a-half-year effort to change the but without burdening the platform and driving up costs and extending schedules. We endeavored to edge CubeSat paradigm. take our engineering knowledge and best practices Johnson, along with other experts, initiated the to give small satellites the same level of reliability Goddard Modular SmallSat Architecture, or GMSA as our larger spacecraft. We endeavored to transi- cutting (CuttingEdge, Winter 2017, Page 7). Its goal is to tion CubeSats from an educational to a science develop overarching system designs and technolo- tool. I think we did that with Dellingr.” v gies to dramatically reduce small-satellite mission CONTACTS risks without significantly increasing the platforms’ cost. As part of this effort, technologists now are [email protected] or 301.286.5386 developing avionics systems, command-and-data- [email protected] or 301.286.2438 R&D-Funded Technologies Showcased on Dellingr’s Debut Flight Along for the ride on Dellingr’s maiden journey is a suite of miniaturized Goddard-developed tech- nologies — one no larger than a fingernail — that in many cases already have proven their mettle in suborbital