Technology Education Satellite (TechEdSat) is a successful nano-sat flight series conducted from the NASA Ames Research Center in collaboration with numerous universities (San Jose State University, University of Idaho, University of California, University of Minnesota, Smith College). While one of the principal aims has been to introduce young professionals and university students to the practical realm of developing space flight hardware, considerable innovations have been introduced. In addition, this evolving flight platform has tested concepts for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) sample return, as well as planetary nano-sat class mission concepts.

TechEdSat-1

The first TechEdSat (later renamed "TechEdSat-1" or "TES-1") was a 1U-Cubesat designed to evaluate Space Plug-and-play Avionics (SPA) designed in Sweden by ÅAC Microtec. It was also originally intended to perform a communications experiment utilizing the

Iridium Iridium is a chemical element with the symbol Ir and atomic number 77. A very hard, brittle, silvery-white transition metal of the platinum group, it is considered the second-densest naturally occurring metal (after osmium) with a density of ...

and

Orbcomm ''ORBCOMM'' is an American company that offers industrial Internet of things (IoT) and machine to machine (M2M) communications hardware, software and services designed to track, monitor, and control fixed and mobile assets in markets including ...

satellite phone network, although this function was disabled before launch. TechEdSat was deployed into orbit from the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...

(ISS) on 4 October 2012. It reentered to atmosphere on 5 May 2013.

Hardware

Quake Global Quake Global is a technology company that provides products for asset tracking, location, and analytics. Quake Global designs and implements facility or campus level asset tracking products typically based around RFID and/ or BLE technology. In 20 ...

Q1000 Modem (

) (deactivated) * Quake Global Q9602 Modem (

) (deactivated) * Stensat Radio Beacon * 4 x nanoRTU (ÅAC Microtec) * Main Power Distribution Board (ÅAC Microtec) * RTU Lite (ÅAC Microtec) * 2 meter band

Monopole Antenna A monopole antenna is a class of radio antenna consisting of a straight rod-shaped conductor, often mounted perpendicularly over some type of conductive surface, called a ground plane. The driving signal from the transmitter is applied, o ...

* 70 cm band

* 1600

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...

Patch Antenna A patch antenna is a type of antenna with a low profile, which can be mounted on a surface. It consists of a planar rectangular, circular, triangular, or any geometrical sheet or "patch" of metal, mounted over a larger sheet of metal called a g ...

* Pumpkin, Inc. 1U Skeletonized CubeSat Structure *

Canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western ca ...

BP-930

Lithium-ion battery A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery which uses the reversible reduction of lithium ions to store energy. It is the predominant battery type used in portable consumer electronics and electric vehicles. It also s ...

Specifications

* Dimensions: 11.35 cm x 10.0 cm x 10.0 cm * Mass: 1.2 kg (2.6 lb) * Power Consumption (Safe Mode): 0.350 W * Power Consumption (Safe Mode, Stensat Transmitting): 3.400 W * Power Consumption (Nominal Mode): 3.965 W * Power Consumption (Q1000 Transmitting): 27.125 W * Power Consumption (Q9602 Transmitting): 10.490 W * Power Consumption (Nominal Mode, Stensat Transmitting): 7.015 W * Solar Array (Average): 1.229 W * Power Storage: 17 Wh

Launch

TechEdSat was launched from pad 2 of the

Tanegashima Space Center The (TNSC) is the largest rocket-launch complex in Japan with a total area of about 9.7 square kilometers. It is located on the southeast coast of Tanegashima, an island approximately south of Kyushu. It was established in 1969 when the ...

Yoshinobu Launch Complex Yoshinobu Launch Complex (LC-Y) is a rocket launch site at the Tanegashima Space Center on Tanegashima. The site and its collection of facilities were originally built for the H-II launch vehicle and later used for H-IIA and H-IIB launches. I ...

(LC-Y2) on 21 July 2012, at 02:06 UTC, aboard

Kounotori 3 Kounotori 3 ( ja, こうのとり3号機; English: "white stork" ), also known as HTV-3, was the third flight of the Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle. It was launched on 21 July 2012 to resupply the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the H ...

atop an

H-IIB H-IIB (H2B) was an expendable space launch system jointly developed by the Japanese government's space agency JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. It was used to launch the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV, or ''Kōnotori'') cargo spacecraft for ...

launch vehicle A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload ( spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pads, supported by a launch control center and ...

. Kounotori 3 carried the satellite, along with the

RAIKO RAIKO ( ja, 雷鼓, literally ''thunder drum'') is a Japanese satellite which was built and operated by Tohoku University, Tohoku and Wakayama University, Wakayama Universities. A two-unit CubeSat, RAIKO was deployed from the International Spa ...

WE WISH WE WISH (World Environmental Watching and Investigation from Space Height) was a small commercial CubeSat which was deployed from the International Space Station (ISS) in October 2012 and which deorbited in March 2013. It was built by the Japan ...

Niwaka Niwaka or FITSAT-1 is a 1U CubeSat satellite deployed from the International Space Station (ISS) on 4 October 2012. The Niwaka satellite includes high power LEDs which are driven by 200 watts pulses, allowing Morse code style communication fr ...

, and F-1 spacecraft, to the

(ISS), from where it was deployed via the

JAXA The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into orb ...

J-SSOD deployer, from the Kibō module on 4 October 2012 at 15:44:15.297 UTC.

Beacon Packet Format

TechEdSat-1 transmitted a heartbeat packet over amateur radio every 4 seconds. These packets are 122

ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...

character

AX.25 AX.25 (Amateur X.25) is a data link layer protocol originally derived from layer 2 of the X.25 protocol suite and designed for use by amateur radio operators. It is used extensively on amateur packet radio networks. AX.25 v2.0 and later occupies t ...

packets. Amateur band radio frequency is 437.465

. Two consecutive 12 bit raw

Analog-to-digital converter In electronics, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC, A/D, or A-to-D) is a system that converts an analog signal, such as a sound picked up by a microphone or light entering a digital camera, into a digital signal. An ADC may also provide ...

(ADC) data values are parsed into one 3 byte chunk in order to save data space.

TechEdSat-2

An Iridium transceiver flew aboard the

PhoneSat PhoneSat is an ongoing NASA project of building nanosatellites using unmodified consumer-grade off-the-shelf smartphones and Arduino platform and launching them into Low Earth Orbit. This project is part of NASA's Small Spacecraft Technology Prog ...

v2a CubeSat as the TechEdSat-2 mission, separate from the spacecraft originally planned as TechEdSat-2.

Alexander Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

, also known as PhoneSat 2.0 Beta or PhoneSat v2a is a technology demonstration satellite operated by NASA's Ames Research Center, which was launched on 21 April 2013. Part of the

programme, it was one of the first three PhoneSat spacecraft, and the first Phonesat-2.0 satellite, to be launched. A PhoneSat-2.0 satellite, Alexander, was built to the single-unit (1U) CubeSat specification, and measures in each dimension. The satellite is based around an off-the-shelf

Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (, sometimes shortened to SEC and stylized as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean multinational electronics corporation headquartered in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, South Korea. It is the pinnacle of the Samsung chaebol, a ...

Nexus S The Nexus S 4G is a smartphone co-developed by Google and Samsung and manufactured by Samsung Electronics for release in 2010. It was the first smartphone to use the Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" operating system, and the first Android device to su ...

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

which serves in place of an onboard computer. The satellite is equipped with a two-way S-band

transponder In telecommunications, a transponder is a device that, upon receiving a signal, emits a different signal in response. The term is a blend of ''transmitter'' and ''responder''. In air navigation or radio frequency identification, a flight trans ...

and

solar cell A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physical and chemical phenomenon.

s for power generation. The spacecraft uses the phone's gyroscopes, along with a

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

receiver, to determine its position and orientation, and a system of reaction wheels and magnetorquer coils for

attitude control Attitude control is the process of controlling the orientation of an aerospace vehicle with respect to an inertial frame of reference or another entity such as the celestial sphere, certain fields, and nearby objects, etc. Controlling vehicle ...

TechEdSat-3p

TechEdSat-3p was the third spacecraft flown in the TechEdSat series. Its dimensions were approximately 30 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm, or three CubeSat units long, making it three times larger than TechEdSat-1. TechEdSat-3p was launched to the

(ISS) on 3 August 2013 from

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

on the

Kounotori 4 Kounotori 4, also known as HTV-4, was the fourth flight of the H-II Transfer Vehicle, an uncrewed cargo spacecraft launched in August 2013 to resupply the International Space Station. It launched from Tanegashima Space Center aboard H-IIB No. ...

(HTV-4) International Space Station cargo resupply mission and subsequently deployed into orbit by the JEM-Small Satellite Orbital Deployer (J-SSOD). TechEdSat-3p was the first satellite of the TechEdSat series to include an

exo-brake Small Payload Quick Return (SPQR) is a NASA Ames Research Center concept to return small payloads from orbit. The system uses an Exo-Brake, a parachute-like drag device for use in the low-pressure exosphere of Low Earth Orbit. This is the first p ...

, a parachute-like drag device to demonstrate passive deorbit capability. The deployment of an exo-brake increases the surface area of a satellite, increasing its

coefficient of drag In fluid dynamics, the drag coefficient (commonly denoted as: c_\mathrm, c_x or c_) is a dimensionless quantity that is used to quantify the drag or resistance of an object in a fluid environment, such as air or water. It is used in the drag e ...

in the thin upper atmosphere and causing the satellite to deorbit faster than it otherwise would. This technology could be used to more quickly dispose of satellites in Low Earth Orbit that have completed their missions, decreasing the amount of potentially hazardous debris in space. The exo-brake is currently being developed for use as part of the

Small Payload Quick Return Small Payload Quick Return (SPQR) is a NASA Ames Research Center concept to return small payloads from orbit. The system uses an Exo-Brake, a parachute-like drag device for use in the low-pressure exosphere of Low Earth Orbit. This is the first ...

(SPQR) concept, which would enable science materials to be returned to

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

from the International Space Station whenever is most convenient for scientists rather than just a few times per year aboard a returning cargo resupply vehicle. According to

smallsat A small satellite, miniaturized satellite, or smallsat is a satellite of low mass and size, usually under . While all such satellites can be referred to as "small", different classifications are used to categorize them based on mass. Satellites ca ...

logistics company ÅAC Microtech, a main power distribution board designed for TechEdSat-1 was reused on the TechEdSat-3p mission. Deployment TechEdSat3p

TechEdSat-4

TechEdSat-4 was a 3U CubeSat mission developed, integrated, and tested at

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

Ames Research Center The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) labo ...

in partnership with student interns from

San Jose State University San José State University (San Jose State or SJSU) is a public university in San Jose, California. Established in 1857, SJSU is the oldest public university on the West Coast and the founding campus of the California State University (CSU) sys ...

(SJSU) in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

and the

University of Idaho The University of Idaho (U of I, or UIdaho) is a public land-grant research university in Moscow, Idaho. It is the state's land-grant and primary research university,, and the lead university in the Idaho Space Grant Consortium. The Universit ...

in Moscow, Idaho. The objective of the TechEdSat-4 mission was to demonstrate new technologies including satellite-to-satellite communications and an upgraded Exo-Brake device to demonstrate a passive deorbiting. TechEdSat-4 was launched as a secondary cargo payload on the Cygnus CRS Orb-2 ISS resupply mission. The launch vehicle was the

Orbital Sciences Corporation Orbital Sciences Corporation (commonly referred to as Orbital) was an American company specializing in the design, manufacture, and launch of small- and medium- class space and launch vehicle systems for commercial, military and other governmen ...

Antares-120, launching from the

Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) is a commercial space launch facility located at the southern tip of NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island in Virginia, just east of the Delmarva Peninsula and south of Chincoteague, Virgi ...

Wallops Island Wallops Island is a island in Accomack County, Virginia, part of the Virginia Barrier Islands that stretch along the eastern seaboard of the United States of America. It is just south of Chincoteague Island, a popular tourist destination. W ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

on 13 July 2014. TechEdSat-4 was deployed from the

via the

Nanoracks Nanoracks LLC is a private in-space services companywhich builds space hardware and in-space repurposing tools.The company also facilitates experiments and launches of CubeSats to Low Earth Orbit. Nanoracks's main office is in Houston, Texa ...

CubeSat Deployer on 4 March 2015. The satellite decayed from orbit on 3 April 2015. ISS-43 Deploying of CubeSats

TechEdSat-5

TechEdSat-5 was a 4 kg, 3.5U CubeSat that was launched on 9 December 2016 aboard the Kounotori 6 (HTV-6) cargo resupply spacecraft, and was deployed from the

(ISS) at 18:20 UTC on 6 March 2017. It was the first satellite in the TechEdSat program to include a modulated Exo-Brake that was could adjust the amount of atmospheric drag on the spacecraft, enabling a targeted re-entry. The TechEdSat-5 Exo-Brake was cross-shaped, made of

mylar BoPET (biaxially-oriented polyethylene terephthalate) is a polyester film made from stretched polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and is used for its high tensile strength, chemical and dimensional stability, transparency, reflectivity, gas and a ...

, and used a combination of mechanical struts and flexible cords. Its surface area was approximately 0.35 square metres. A "Cricket" Wireless Sensor Module (WSM) was included with TechEdSat-5. The satellite reentered the atmosphere on 29 July 2017 after successfully operating for 144 days. Sstp_t5p5_with_iss2-1024x678

TechEdSat-6

TechEdSat-6 was a CubeSat 3.5U that was launched at 12:19:51 UTC on 12 November 2017 aboard the Cygnus CRS-8 cargo resupply mission to the

(ISS). It was deployed from the

Nanoracks CubeSat Deployer The Nanoracks CubeSat Deployer (NRCSD) is a device to deploy CubeSats into orbit from the International Space Station (ISS). In 2014, two CubeSat deployers were on board the International Space Station (ISS): the Japanese Experiment Module ...

on 20 November 2017. In addition to the primary payload, it contained a CubeSat Identity Tag (CUBIT), a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag developed by

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Ad ...

and

SRI International SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic ...

to assist in future identification of satellites. It successfully reentered the atmosphere on 14 May 2018. TechEdSat-6

TechEdSat-7

TechEdSat-7 was a 2U CubeSat that was intended to test a High Packing Density Exo-Brake. It was launched on the first successful flight of Virgin Orbit's

LauncherOne LauncherOne is a two-stage orbital launch vehicle developed and flown by Virgin Orbit that began operational flights in 2021, after being in development from 2007 to 2020. It is an air-launched rocket, designed to carry smallsat payloads o ...

on 17 January 2021 as part of NASA's ELaNa program. It flew with a CubeSat Identity Tag (CUBIT), a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag developed by

and

to assist in future identification of satellites. The satellite decayed from orbit on 4 May 2022.

TechEdSat-8

TechEdSat-8 (Technical and Educational Satellite-8) was

CubeSat A CubeSat is a class of miniaturized satellite based around a form factor consisting of cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than per unit, and often use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components for their electronics and structure. CubeSats ...

6U. It was built as a conjoined project between

(SJSU) and the

as a collaborative engineering project, with oversight from the

. It was a technology demonstration mission to further develop and demonstrate the

Exo-Brake Small Payload Quick Return (SPQR) is a NASA Ames Research Center concept to return small payloads from orbit. The system uses an Exo-Brake, a parachute-like drag device for use in the low-pressure exosphere of Low Earth Orbit. This is the first p ...

system through, designed for continued operation in high temperature environments, the full recovery of a payload. It featured a semi-autonomous control system to target the entry face point, as well as capabilities to measure a unique ablation device on the forebody. This technology, known as a "Hot Exo-Brake" could enable more precisely-targeted atmospheric reentries. An ablation device was also flying on the spacecraft.

History

TechEdSat-8 was selected in 2017 by the CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) of the NASA to be launched as part of the ELaNa program. TechEdSat-8 was originally planned to launch with the Cygnus NG-10 (17 November 2018) cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station as part of the ELaNa program, but instead was launched aboard the

SpaceX CRS-16 SpaceX CRS-16, also known as SpX-16, was a Commercial Resupply Service mission to the International Space Station launched on 5 December 2018 aboard a Falcon 9 launch vehicle. The mission was contracted by NASA and is flown by SpaceX. This ...

ISS cargo resupply mission at 18:16 UTC on 5 December 2018, arriving at the

(ISS) on 8 December 2018.

Deployment

TechEdSat-8 was deployed into orbit by the Kibō JEM-Small Satellite Orbital Deployer (J-SSOD) at 16:45 UTC on 31 January 2019.

Mission

The satellite established communication with controllers and, as of 20 February 2019, was reportedly performing well in advance of a targeted reentry. The satellite failed shortly after deployment due to a loss of power from its solar panels, and re-entered in the

atmosphere of Earth The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing fo ...

on 20 April 2020. TechEdSat-8 Exploded View

TechEdSat-10

TechEdSat-10 (TES-10) was a 6U (1 x 6U) (previously announced as 3U)

that was selected in 2018 to launch as part of the ELaNa program.

Launch

On 15 February 2020, TechEdSat-10 was launched to the

(ISS) aboard the Cygnus NG-13 cargo spacecraft.

Deployment

Deployed on 13 July 2020, TechEdSat-10 tested radio communication devices, precision deorbit technologies for

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...

(NOAA) and others, radiation tolerant electronics, and

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

hardware for future experiments.

Mission

The mission demonstrated increased storage and power capabilities that could enable future science and exploration using small spacecraft beyond low-Earth orbit. Included on TechEdSat-10 were improvements over previous CubeSat technologies in the areas of communications and radio systems, and new propulsion techniques. As the tenth iteration in the Technology Educational Satellite (TES) series, TechEdSat-10 built upon a history of the program's innovative work with early career researchers, students, and volunteers. TechEdSat-10 contained 150 watt-hours of power storage, eight radios, nine processors, and a graphics processing unit. Additionally, the small satellite carried four cameras, including a stereoscopic virtual reality camera experiment. Like several TechEdSat missions before it, this mission demonstrated the exo-brake technology in its largest iteration to date. The exo-brake was designed to deploy an umbrella-like "brake" to increase drag and take a small satellite out of orbit. This mission, the exo-brake could be controlled or modulated by commands from the ground in order to target a re-entry point. In the future, this could enable sample return missions from orbit and future planetary missions.

TechEdSat-13

TechEdSat-13 is a 3U CubeSat that is intended to test and validate three different technologies, including an Exo-Brake. Along with other cubesats (PAN-A and B, GEARRS-3, SteamSat-2, STORK-3, ADLER-1) it was launched on the third successful flight of Virgin Orbit's

on 13 January 2022 as part of the STP-27VP mission ("Above the Clouds"). TechEdSat-13 uses the Loihi neuromorphic chip, representing an artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) payload application.

TechEdSat-15

TechEdSat-15 was a 3U CubeSat. It was launched on 1 October 2022 as a rideshare payload on a

Firefly Alpha Firefly Alpha (Firefly α) is a two-stage orbital expendable launch vehicle developed by the American company Firefly Aerospace to compete in the commercial small satellite launch market. Alpha is intended to provide launch options for both ...

rocket. Despite it being its first mission reaching Earth orbit, due to a lower-than-intended deployment orbit most of the satellites re-entered before reaching their intended design life.

Future TechEdSats

TechEdSat-9 and TechEdSat-11 are planned to fly at some point in the future. TechEdSat-9, like TechEdSat-10, is planned to test radio communication technologies for

(NOAA) and others. TechEdSat-12 will test technologies for the tracking and identification of small satellites. It will carry a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag, a radar reflector, and an

L-band The L band is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) designation for the range of frequencies in the radio spectrum from 1 to 2 gigahertz (GHz). This is at the top end of the ultra high frequency (UHF) band, at the lower ...

antenna. It was selected for launch in February 2020 by NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative, and will be delivered to orbit on a launch contracted through the ELaNa program.

References

External links

* {{Orbital launches in 2012 Spacecraft launched in 2012 CubeSats Student satellites Satellites deployed from the International Space Station Secondary payloads