CubeSat for Solar Particles

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CubeSat for Solar Particles
Artemis I OSA Secondary Payloads - CuSP and LunaHMap (KSC-20210714-PH-KLS01 0071).jpg
The CuSP Team delivers the Cubesat to NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Shown are (left to right) Mike Epperly, Project Manager, Don George, Mission Engineer, and Chad Loeffler, Flight Software Engineer.
NamesCuSP
Mission type Technology demonstration, Space Weather
Operator Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
Mission duration81 minutes 6 seconds
Spacecraft properties
Spacecraft CubeSat
Spacecraft type6U CubeSat
Bus SwRI Custom Design
Manufacturer Southwest Research Institute (SwRI)
Launch mass10.2 kg (22 lb)
Dimensions10 cm × 20 cm × 30 cm
Power45.46 watts
Start of mission
Launch date16 November 2022, 06:47:44 UTC [1]
Rocket SLS Block 1
Launch site KSC, LC-39B
Contractor NASA
End of mission
Last contact16 November 2022
Orbital parameters
Reference system Heliocentric orbit
Flyby of Moon
Instruments
Suprathermal Ion Spectrograph (SIS)
Miniaturized Electron and Proton Telescope (MERiT)
Vector Helium Magnetometer (VHM)

CubeSat for Solar Particles (CuSP) was a low-cost 6U CubeSat to orbit the Sun to study the dynamic particles and magnetic fields. [2] [3] The principal investigator for CuSP is Mihir Desai, at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio, Texas. [2] It was launched on the maiden flight of the Space Launch System (SLS), as a secondary payload of the Artemis 1 mission on 16 November 2022. [1] [4]

Contents

Following deployment from the Artemis launch adaptor, contact with the spacecraft showed that it successfully stabilized and deployed its solar arrays, but contact was lost after about an hour. [5]

Objective

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]

The CuSP team

CuSP Spacecraft Team: [6]

Payload

This CubeSat carried three scientific instruments: [2] [3]

Propulsion

The satellite features a cold gas thruster system for propulsion, attitude control (orientation) and orbital maneuvering. [7]

Spacecraft bus

The spacecraft's bus consisted of: [6]

Flight results

Other Artemis 1 CubeSats

References

  1. 1 2 Roulette, Joey; Gorman, Steve (16 November 2022). "NASA's next-generation Artemis mission heads to moon on debut test flight". Reuters. Retrieved 16 November 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Heliophysics CubeSat to Launch on NASAs SLS". NASA. 2 February 2016. Retrieved 9 March 2021.PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
  3. 1 2 Messier, Doug (5 February 2016). "SwRI CubeSat to Explore Deep Space". Parabolic ARC. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  4. Harbaugh, Jennifer (23 July 2021). "Artemis I CubeSats will study the Moon, solar radiation". NASA . Retrieved 22 October 2021.
  5. Interrante, Abbey (8 December 2022). "Artemis I Payload CuSP CubeSat Mission Update". NASA . Retrieved 26 May 2024.
  6. 1 2 George, Don (21 April 2016). "The CuSP interplanetary CubeSat mission" (PDF). California Polytechnic State University.
  7. "CuSP Propulsion System". VACCO Industries. 11 August 2017. Retrieved 20 August 2022.