Concept development of a nano-reaction control system for small satellites

  • Aerospace Engineering
Photo of the boards Danny Maas designed and fabricated
Propulsion systems on CubeSats are becoming common. As CubeSats go further than low Earth orbit, reaction control systems are necessary to control the attitude of the spacecraft and perform orbital maneuvers. In collaboration with Cal Poly CubeSat Laboratory, Maverick Space Systems is developing a propulsion system for 6U CubeSats that will use resistojets to flash water propellant to steam. In particular, Danny and Walden were tasked with the development of the avionics that will control the valves and heaters of the system, accepting commands, and relaying telemetry and sensor readings back to the spacecraft’s onboard computer. Through the SURP, the goal was to prepare for the manufacturing of a proof of concept test to be run in October 2020.

Our Team

A photo of Danny Maas

Danny Maas

Electrical Engineer

Danny Maas is a second-year electrical engineering student. He was responsible for selecting components, creating schematics, designing circuit boards, assembling the boards and testing the electrical systems of the thruster.

A photo of Walden

Walden Hillegass

Software Engineer

Walden Hillegas is a second-year software engineering student. He was responsible for writing all of the software for this project, which included code for accepting commands from a host satellite, polling onboard sensors and creating telemetry data, and executing burns for the thruster.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Cal Poly and Maverick Space Systems for giving us the opportunity to work on this project, and Dr. Pauline Faure for being an amazing advisor who helped us along the right path and gave us valuable advice when we hit roadblocks.

Our Project Video

Our Project's Digital Poster

I am truly sorry that I was not able to make this image more accessible. It is the poster we made for our project, but I could not find a way to add it to the website while keeping all the text, nor is there a way for me to add it to the website as a slide (as it was originally made in PowerPoint). Essentially, the image talks about the project's purpose (to make a propulsion system for cubeSats since they are starting to go beyond Low Earth Orbit), what Danny accomplished during SURP (Designing the boards, testing one of the circuits and verifying that it functions correctly), what Walden did during SURP (creating code that can report telemetry, receive commands, and transmit data back and forth with the host satellite), and what our goals are in the future (testing the actual circuit boards that got designed, testing the entire system in a proof of concept test, and working towards a prototype with more functionality).
Printable Poster (PDF)

Our Project Slides

Walden works on testing his code with the electrical equipment he has at home
Danny shows off the two boards he just spent hours testing and assembling
Logos for Maverick Space Systems, CubeSat, and Gosling (the proof-of-concept version of Goose)
Danny tests the newly arrived boards before starting assembly
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