This paper proposes a novel concept of using highly efficient Snapshot Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) receivers to provide precise position fixes of single or multiple satellites in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) to improve upper atmospheric modeling and thus contribute to superior space situational awareness (SSA). While tracking of LEO satellites and the use of onboard GNSS receivers for drag measurements and upper atmosphere modeling are well-established techniques, the expected advent of snapshot GNSS receivers for spaceborne scientific applications will allow massive improvements on the GNSS sensor's Size, Weight, Power and Cost (SWaP-C). With chip-size dimensions of 4x4 mm², a mass of less than 5 gr, an average power level below 0.1 mW, snapshot receiver technology is expected to provide position fixes in space with an accuracy of ∼19 m (3D r.m.s.), which will surpass the accuracy of Two-Line Elements (TLE) provided by the US Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) by at least two orders of magnitude. Equally important to their SWaP-C benefits, Snapshot GNSS receivers will allow mission and spacecraft designers to trade onboard-processing requirements versus payload downlink requirements, leading to either minimum onboard processing or a minimum amount of downlinked data. In this research, we establish the concept and architectural overview of using snapshot GNSS receivers for SSA, including the role of using them in a Distributed Space System (DSS), and detail their characterization and performance in terms of the required GNSS hardware and the impact of these payload on the power budget, the link budget and the OnBoard Data Handling (OBDH) budget of a satellite. It will be shown that these receivers lend themselves especially to their use on femto-, pico- and nano-satellites, although integrated snapshot modules may be flown as auxiliary payloads on micro- or mini-satellites as well. While this work focuses on the implications of the use of snapshot GNSS receivers on spacecraft design for the use of upper atmosphere modeling and SSA, their use may open up other science applications which avoid the need for expensive high-grade GNSS receivers.

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Mitigation strategies to eliminate existing space debris, such as with Active Space Debris Removal (ASDR) missions, have become increasingly important. Among the considered ASDR approaches, one involves using a net as a capturing mechanism. A fundamental requirement for any ASDR mission is that the capture process itself should not give rise to new space debris. However, in simulations of net capturing, the potential for structural breaking is often overlooked. A discrete Multi-Spring-Damper net model was employed to simulate the impact of a 30 m × 30 m net travelling at 20 m/s onto an ESA Envisat mock-up. The Envisat was modelled as a two-rigid-body system comprised of the main body and a large solar array with a hinge connection. The analysis revealed that more than two significant substructures had a notable likelihood of breaking, prompting the recommendation of limiting the impacting velocity. The generation of secondary space debris indicates that net capturing is riskier than previously assumed in the literature.@en

The accurate measurement of inter-satellite distances is fundamental to the successful operation of distributed spacecraft missions, facilitating diverse applications ranging from scientific exploration to navigation and communication. This study comprehensively overviews applications requiring inter-satellite tracking by analyzing 44 multi-spacecraft missions. These missions are divided into seven categories based on their use of inter-satellite distance measurements. Each category necessitates varying levels of accuracy, prompting the utilization of distinct tracking methods. The analysis reveals that missions near Earth typically rely on Global Navigation Satellite Systems measurements, achieving millimeter-level accuracy, while lunar missions opt for radio ranging for centimeter-level accuracy. Inter-satellite Laser Ranging Interferometry emerges as the preferred method for missions demanding exceptionally high accuracy (nanometer to picometer range), such as those dedicated to gravitational wave detection and gravimetry. Notably, the analysis identifies a burgeoning trend towards the adoption of Inter-satellite Laser Transponder Ranging, capable of achieving sub-millimeter accuracy. Furthermore, this work proposes a novel concept: integrating inter-satellite ranging with Laser Communication Terminal (LCTs), either to substitute for existing tracking methods or to enhance measurement accuracy within established frameworks. However, its full potential rests upon the successful adaptation of existing LCTs for ranging functionality without compromising data rates. Future research will play a critical role in quantifying achievable ranging performance by characterizing systematic errors within LCTs.@en

The need for higher data rates has transitioned the satellites towards laser communication, opening up new opportunities for inter-satellite distance measurements. The stringent requirements for space missions like gravimetry, formation flying, collision avoidance, and precise orbit determination require highly precise distance knowledge, which can be offered by lasers. The past and present missions depend on radio ranging and laser interferometers to achieve up to centimeter-order and picometer-order precision, respectively. However, these methods either require additional hardware or interfere with the communication data rates as the power available is shared between communication and ranging operations. Therefore, this research explores the potential of laser communication terminals in measuring the inter-satellite distance. Numerical simulations are performed to analyze the effect of the precision of inter-satellite distance measurements on atmospheric density estimation. The analysis shows that such range measurements can only improve atmospheric density estimates if the uncertainty in the drag coefficient can be reduced below the current range of 3-5%.@en

Steering multiple laser beams using spatial light modulators (SLMs) creates unwanted diffraction and reflections that are not modulated by the SLM, which can make beam tracking difficult. A novel, to the best of our knowledge, and simple beam steering methodology is proposed, which aims at reducing the influence of this clutter while maintaining tracking performance. The beam(s) are deliberately defocused before steering with a superposition of a phase ramp and Fresnel lens (PRFL) phase screen on the SLM. As a result, the non-modulated reflections and diffracted light are decreased in relative intensity to the steered beam, in turn allowing simple and standard peak intensity and center of gravity (CG) algorithms for tracking. Hardware demonstration shows tracking performance using the PRFL remained on-par with more complex filtering approaches while adding no additional hardware. This method has potential to improve the communication performance of multi-beam laser communication terminals.

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Contribution: This article presents a comprehensive overview of characteristics of educational designs of collaborative engineering design activities found in literature and how these characteristics mediate students' collaboration. Background: Engineers have to solve complex problems that require collaboration. In education, various collaborative engineering design activities have been implemented to prepare students for these professional practices. According to cultural historical activity theory (CHAT), educational activities can be described in terms of interrelated elements, i.e., subject, object, tools, rules, division of labor, and community, that influence learning outcomes. A key issue is how these elements mediate students' collaborative efforts and how they contribute to learning. Research Questions: 1) How is collaborative learning implemented in engineering design education? 2) How do the elements of CHAT and their interrelations mediate collaborative learning? and 3) What is the evidence that the implementation of collaborative learning contributed to the achievement of desired learning outcomes? Methodology: A systematic literature review following preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analyses protocols guidelines was conducted, including 111 articles published between 2011 and 2021. CHAT was used as analytical framework. Findings: Collaborative learning was implemented in engineering design activities to develop technical as well as nontechnical skills. For the CHAT elements, it was found that establishing a common object, rules for collaboration, and division of labor are essential for effective collaboration and can be enhanced through digital technologies (tools) and support from a community, for example, educators. Finally, results showed that there is evidence that described implementations contribute to learning. However, this evidence needs to be interpreted with care, due to methodological issues in some included articles.

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Line-of-Sight (LoS) navigation is an optical navigation technique that exploits the direction to visible celestial bodies, obtained from an onboard imaging system, to estimate the position and velocity of a spacecraft. The directions are fed to an estimation filter, where they are matched with the actual position of the observed bodies, retrieved from onboard stored ephemerides. As LoS navigation represents a really promising option for the next-generation deep-space spacecraft, the objective of this work is to provide new insights into the performance. First, the information matrix is analyzed to show the influence of the geometry between the spacecraft and the observed planet(s). Then, a Monte Carlo approach is used to investigate the influence of measurement error (ranging from 0.1 to 100 arcsec), and tracking frequency (ranging from four observations per day to one observation every two days). The effect on navigation performance is quantified by two indicators. The first is the 3D position and velocity Root-Mean-Square-Errors, computed once the estimation is considered to be steady-state. The second is the convergence time, which quantifies the required time for the estimation to reach the steady-state behaviour. The simulation is based on a set of four planets, which do not follow the common heliocentric dynamics but rotate around the Sun with the same (distance-independent) angular velocity of the spacecraft. This approach allows the separation of scenario-dependent behaviours from navigation intrinsic properties, as the same relative geometry between observer and observed objects is maintained during the whole simulation. The results provide a useful guide for the next-generation autonomous navigation system, for both the definition of hardware requirements and the design of an appropriate navigation strategy. Considerations are then applied to Near-Earth Asteroid fly-by mission scenarios for the definition of the navigation strategy and hardware requirements. It is shown the importance of relative angles between the spacecraft and the planets. In the single-planet observation scenario, when the angle between the position vectors of the spacecraft and planet approaches a null value, the estimation error decreases. In the double-planets observation scenario, when the separation angle between the two LoS directions gets close to 90°, the estimation error decreases. The main influence on the performance is driven by the measurement error, which with current technologies is shown to be able to provide a position error in the order of a few hundred kilometers, while with a lower measurement error (0.1 arcsec) it would be possible to have a position error below 100 km. Finally, it is demonstrated that tracking frequency plays a secondary role in the performance, and only influences tangibly the convergence time.

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This paper introduces an adaptive Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)-based Unscented Kalman Filter for the pose estimation of uncooperative spacecraft. The validation is carried out at Stanford's robotic Testbed for Rendezvous and Optical Navigation on the Satellite Hardware-In-the-loop Rendezvous Trajectories (SHIRT) dataset, which simulates vision-based rendezvous trajectories of a servicer spacecraft to PRISMA's Tango spacecraft. The proposed navigation system is stress-tested on synthetic as well as realistic lab imagery by simulating space-like illumination conditions on-ground. The validation is performed at different levels of the navigation system by first training and testing the adopted CNN on SPEED+, Stanford's spacecraft pose estimation dataset with specific emphasis on domain shift between a synthetic domain and an Hardware-In-the-Loop domain. A novel data augmentation scheme based on light randomization is proposed to improve the CNN robustness under adverse viewing conditions, reaching centimeter-level and 10 degree-level pose errors in 80% of the SPEED+ lab images. Next, the entire navigation system is tested on the SHIRT dataset. Results indicate that the inclusion of a new scheme to adaptively scale the heatmaps-based measurement error covariance based on filter innovations improves filter robustness by returning centimeter-level position errors and moderate attitude accuracies, suggesting that a proper representation of the measurements uncertainty combined with an adaptive measurement error covariance is key in improving the navigation robustness.

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Higher educational institutions have broadly adopted Collaborative Engineering Design (CED) activities to prepare students for complex problem-solving in multidisciplinary settings. These activities are non-linear and mediated by various social practices and tools. Therefore educators might struggle in facilitating the achievement of specific learning goals. Embodied cognition is an approach that explains non-linear behaviour through orgamism-environment interactions and might therefore provide educators with insights on how to prompt students towards desired actions in CED activities. According to embodied cognition, we learn through actions that emerge as a response to a problem (task) and environmental constraints. Educators can guide students’ behaviour by proposing tasks and adapting the environmental constraints of a learning situation, thus creating a field of promoted action. In this paper, we outline the progress of a design-based research in which insights from embodied cognition are implemented to promote desired student behaviour in CED activities. We report on the results of our problem-exploration phase. A systematic literature review and focus groups with students revealed that students are often hesitant to adopt new practices and tools that could potentially improve their collaborative design process. Next, we propose three theory-based design principles in which the task and environmental constraints are leveraged to foster the adoption of practices and tools and apply them to CED activities. Finally, we will share preliminary observations of the learning processes triggered by the designed activities and outline the directions for future research.@en

Growing interest in free-space optical communication, due to the high bandwidth and security provided by these links, has generated the necessity of designing high-performance satellite terminals. In order to develop these terminals, the opto-thermo-mechanical phenomena that appear in the space environment and their effect on optical communication links have to be understood in detail. A review of the opto-thermo-mechanical phenomena occurring in spaceborne terminals is presented, describing the relevance of each of them. The methods found to compute the impact on the communication performance due to opto-thermo-mechanical phenomena are collected by building the bridge between the optical and communication performance parameters. Finally, techniques available to mitigate the detrimental effects of these phenomena are classified, and the relevant research challenges are identified.@en

The Delft University of Technology has been working on Delfi-PQ, a 3 P P ocketQube d eveloped b y Aerospace Engineering students during their education. The satellite, while being only 50x50x178 mm and having a mass of 545 g, shares the same problems and requirements of bigger satellites. This paper presents the design concept, development, and testing of Delfi-PQ to help other teams in their development. All the combined information will help to generate a big picture for institutions to start their own small satellite mission.@en

This paper describes the work carried out to extend the NOEL-V platform to include data-level parallelism (DLP) by implementing an integer subset of the RISC-V Vector Extension. The performance and resource utilization efficiency of the resulting vector processor for different levels of DLP (i.e., number of lanes) have been compared to the baseline scalar processor on a Xilinx Kintex Ultrascale field-programmable gate array, employing typical kernels for compute-intensive applications. The role of the memory subsystem has also been investigated, comparing the results obtained with a low-latency and a high-latency main memory. The results show that the speed-up due to the use of the vector pipeline increases with the number of lanes in the vector processor, achieving up to 23.0× the performance of the scalar processor with only 4.3× the resources of the baseline scalar processor. Using an implementation with 32 lanes increases performance even for problem sizes larger than the number of lanes, achieving up to more than 11.7× the performance of the scalar processor with just 1.9× its resource utilization for 128 × 128 matrix multiplications. This work proves that implementations of the selected subset are easily scalable and fit for small-processor implementations in highly constrained space embedded systems.

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Spaceborne Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) receivers have become ubiquitous sensors for spacecraft navigation, especially in Low Earth Orbits (LEOs), often also supporting science endeavors or as acting dedicated science payloads. Due to the large number of space-capable GNSS receiver models available, spacecraft designers, as well as scientists, may find it difficult to have or gain an overview of suitable state-of-the-art models for their purposes and constraints. Based on a literature review that included more than 90 different receiver models, this paper aims to provide an overview of space-capable GNSS receivers that have a heritage in space missions. It analyses trends from the collected data and provides an outlook on miniaturized GNSS receiver models, which have a high potential of being used in future space missions.@en

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in lunar missions, particularly with the growing role of small satellites facilitated by piggyback launch opportunities. Typically, ground-based radiometric tracking is the workhorse to establish the necessary navigation solution in these missions, however, this could be expensive, while small satellites development is expected to be at low cost. To address this challenge, autonomous navigation presents a potential solution: this study explores the satellite-to-satellite tracking-based autonomous on-board orbit determination method for a satellite formation in cislunar space. Several factors affect the performance of orbit determination, and one critical aspect is the timing of tracking windows. Basically, it is crucial to determine when to collect the most useful observations to optimize the outcome of the navigation filter. In some cases, there might be operational constraints such as inter-satellite distance due to the limited onboard power for ranging. This study investigates particle swarm optimization-based satellite-to-satellite tracking window planning. The findings of this work demonstrate that particle swarm optimization offers a near-optimal solution for tracking windows, taking into account constraints arising from the spacecraft itself or from other design choices. In summary, particle swarm optimization provides near-optimal tracking windows by minimizing the overall orbit determination error. The results presented have the potential to enhance the design of satellite formations performing autonomous on-board orbit determination and contribute to cost- effective mission planning solutions.@en

Recent advances in space technology provide an opportunity for small satellites to be launched in cislunar space. However, tracking these small satellites still depends on ground-based operations. Autonomous navigation could be a possible solution considering the challenges presented by costly ground operations and limited onboard power available for small satellites. There have been various studies on autonomous navigation methods for cislunar missions. One of them, LiAISON, provides an autonomous orbit determination solution solely using inter-satellite measurements. This study aims at providing a detailed performance analysis of crosslink radiometric measurements based on autonomous orbit determination for cislunar small satellite formations considering the effects of measurement type, measurement accuracy, bias, formation geometry, and network topology. This study shows that range observations provide better state estimation performance than range-rate observations for the autonomous navigation system in cislunar space. Line-of-sight angle measurements derived from radiometric measurements do not improve the overall system performance. In addition, less precise crosslink measurement methods could be an option for formations in highly observable orbital configurations. It was found that measurement biases and measurements with high intervals reduce the overall system performance. In case there are more than two spacecraft in the formation, the navigation system in the mesh topology provides a better overall state estimation than the centralized topology.

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In recent years, there is a growing interest in small satellites for deep space exploration. The current approach for planetary navigation is based on ground-based radiometric tracking. A new era of low-cost small satellites for space exploration will require autonomous deep space navigation. This will decrease the reliance on ground-based tracking and provide a substantial reduction in operational costs because of crowded communication networks. In addition, it will be an enabler for future missions currently impossible. This review investigates available deep space navigation methods from an autonomy perspective, considering trends in proposed deep space small satellite missions. Autonomous crosslink radiometric navigation, which is one of the best methods for small satellites due to its simplicity and the use of existing technologies, is studied, including available measurement methods, enabling technologies, and applicability to the currently proposed missions. The main objective of this study is to fill the gap in the scientific literature on the autonomous deep space navigation methods, deeply for crosslink radiometric navigation and to aim at showing the potential advantages that this technique could offer to the missions being analyzed. In this study, a total of 64 proposed deep space small satellite missions have been analyzed found from a variety of sources including journal papers, conference proceedings, and mission websites. In those missions, the most popular destinations are found to be cislunar space and small bodies with the purpose of surface mapping and characterization. Even though various autonomous navigation methods have been proposed for those missions, most of them have planned to use the traditional ground-based radiometric tracking for navigation purposes. This study also shows that more than half of the missions can benefit from the crosslink radiometric navigation through the inter-satellite link.

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Piezoelectric actuators are a very attractive technology for active optics mechanisms in space applications due to their very high precision and reliability. However, self-heating of these actuators may be limit their use in space or under high loads, due to the limited ability to evacuate heat. Test procedures that reproduce the operational conditions of these actuators are important to check these operational limits. Here an effort to characterise the thermal emission of pre-stressed piezoelectric actuators in operation is presented. The technique allows direct measurement of the power dissipated by the test item via the control of the different heat transfer mechanisms, using the fall in power provided as measure of power dissipated by the actuators, instead of relying on direct temperature sensors. This allows the construction of a thermal model with a dissipation term readily integrated in system-level modelling to account for the dissipated heat of the piezo. The technique may also be applied to other piezo low power applications in the order of 1 W of thermal emission, and is adaptable to emulate the boundary conditions encountered in operations.

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In this study, the application of the Linked Autonomous Interplanetary Satellite Orbit Navigation (LiAISON) method for cislunar satellite formations is investigated considering range only and range-rate only measurements. The LiAISON method provides an autonomous orbit determination solution solely using satellite-to-satellite measurements such as range and/or range-rate. This paper presents a comparison between range only and range-rate only measurements in satellite formations at cislunar space including the Earth-Moon L!, L" and Lunar orbits by presenting the results of Monte Carlo simulations and observability analysis. The results show that range observations in general provide better state estimations than range-rate observations for cislunar satellite formations in the autonomous navigation applications. However, range-rate only measurements could be an alternative to range-only measurements if range measurements are not precise and high precise range-rate measurements could be collected on-board. It has been found that range only measurements could be good enough to meet the orbit determination requirements for certain small satellite missions and allow to simplify the communication system design and reduce power usage. @en

The objective of this paper is to investigate which approach would lead to more reliable CubeSats: full subsystem redundancy or improved testing. Based on data from surveys, the reliability of satellites and subsystems is estimated using a Kaplan–Meier estimator. Subsequently, a variety of reliability models is defined and their maximum likelihood estimates are compared. A product of a Lognormal distribution addressing immaturity failure and a Gompertz distribution addressing wear-out is found to best represent CubeSat reliability. Bayesian inference is used to find realistic wear-out parameters by using failure data of small satellites. Subsystem reliability estimates are subsequently found using a similar approach. A reliability model for CubeSats with redundant subsystems is established, verified and applied in a Monte Carlo simulation. The results are compared with a model for reduced immaturity failure. Allocating resources to reduction of immaturity failures through improved testing is considered to be superior to allocating these resources to the implementation of subsystem redundancy.@en

To adequately prepare engineering students for their professional career, educational institutions offer projects in which students collaboratively solve engineering design problems. It is known from research these projects can lead to a variety of learning outcomes and student experiences. However, studies that provide insights in the influence of different features of an educational design are rare. In the current study we use Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as analytical framework to understand how different elements of an educational design affect students’ experience. Additionally, we use the notion of contradictions to identify opportunities for structural course improvement. Focus groups were conducted with 12 Master students in Aerospace Engineering, that participated in a collaborative engineering design course. During the course, students applied Systems Engineering (SE) and Concurrent Engineering (CE) and worked in the Collaborative Design Laboratory (CDL), which is a state-of-the-art facility that holds a variety of industry relevant tools. It was found that students valued the guidance of their coach and experts, co-located collaboration and the freedom to structure their own process. However, they perceived challenges with regard to adoption of tools in the CDL, sharing their progress with their supervisor, coordination of collaborative efforts and scheduling issues. An analysis using CHAT revealed what contradictions caused these challenges. Finally, recommendations are given on how course structure can be structurally improved. @en