Mini Marvel

University’s first mini-satellite team is influencing an industry and launching a bright future for Institute of Technology students

by michelle Haschka

Ask any kid what they want to be when they grow up and astronaut is likely to make the list. Whether it’s the appeal of exploring uncharted territory or the chance to bounce around sans gravity, space travel is mysteriously alluring.

Ellie Field admits she wanted to be an astronaut since she was 4 years old. She remembers dreaming of the day when she would be old enough to whiz through the atmosphere on a mission to Mars or the moon.

Fast-forward more than 15 years, Field is a sophomore studying aerospace engineering at the University’s Institute of Technology. While her dreams of interplanetary travel have yet to be realized, she is already working on a spacecraft and is a pioneering member of a project that could influence the future of satellite design.

Field is part of a team of about 25 undergraduate students who embarked on a mission nearly two years ago to enter a nationwide student-run mini-satellite competition which culminates this spring. The University Nanosat-4 Program challenges students to design and build a working satellite, from initial concept to final working vehicle stage. The entry must meet a specific research goal, measure no more than 18.5 inches high or wide, and weigh less than 30 kilograms (66 pounds). The national winner gets a chance to see the fruits of their labor launched into space, with the $3 million launch tab picked up by the federal government.

Building a brighter future for aerospace engineering

Started in 1999, and run by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Air Force Research Labs, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the University Nanosatellite Program aims to train the next generation of space professionals by providing a rigorous competition, while enabling small satellite research and development, integration, and flight test. Approximately 2,500 college students and 25 institutions of higher learning have been involved in the competition since its inception.

“Our primary goal is to attract students into the field of aerospace engineering and to give them experience working on real hardware,” said Jeff Ganley, University Nanosat structural engineer at the Air Force Research Labs and University of Minnesota Institute of Technology alumnus (CE ’94). “This project is not about paper designs. These are real satellites and after working on the project, students are qualified to work in aerospace.”

The University of Minnesota’s entry, named Minnesat, will compete head-to-head with satellites from 10 other universities around the country. According to the Air Force Research Labs, creating miniature spacecraft has many advantages, including inexpensive design, availability for mass production, reduced launch price, fuel economy, and low-risk cost. Because of the inexpensive nature of the project (when compared to the cost of building a commercial satellite), the program gives students a valuable learning platform while encouraging maximum innovation and creativity in small satellite design, development, and flight.

“We have students working on kinds of things that only students can work on—some of it is very ‘out there’ stuff. In turn, we get technology development that is high-risk and high-payoff,” Ganley said.

The Nanosat Program has two distinct stages. The first stage, designing and building the satellite, culminated at the AIAA Student Satellite Flight Competition Review (FCR) in March. At the FCR, teams are evaluated on several criteria, including student participation/education, technical relevance/excellence, and flyability (meaning that the hardware meets strict quality assurance guidelines and spaceflight qualification practices). FCR judges are a distinguished panel of government and industry professionals.

The second stage of the Program begins for the one team whose satellite is deemed winner at the FCR. The mini-satellite is expected to be flight-ready by the time it is evaluated at the FCR (standards for spaceflight hardware and associated documentation are diligently maintained by teams every step of the way). During the second phase, the winning project goes through a series of tests to simulate the launch and outer space experience. Once testing is complete, the winning satellite will be launched into space.

Influencing the future of satellite design

This is the first time the University of Minnesota is participating in the competition. While teams from other universities that have participated in the past have the advantage of improving upon existing satellites, the Minnesat team built their model from scratch. In addition to learning the skills to build a satellite from the ground up, the team’s experience is contributing to future University curriculum.

Demoz Gebre-Egziabher, a professor of aerospace engineering and mechanics and the principal investigator for the project, hopes that the Nanosat project will one day be required for all aerospace engineering majors. This goal is on the right track. The U of M recently was selected to participate in the next iteration of the competition—Nanosat-5.

“We are here to build an infrastructure in satellite design and space design into our department’s curriculum,” Gebre-Egziabher said. “We’ve started a program that we can integrate into the curriculum and build upon. And from the research aspect of the project, we will be a success. We have published papers, and whether or not we launch, I believe the Air Force will use our research.”

Research is a key component in the competition and differentiates each team’s entry. The objective of Minnesat is to use the Global Positioning System (GPS) to determine the orientation of small satellites. Using GPS for navigation is not a new concept, Gebre-Egziabher said. It’s currently used in large satellites and other projects. But to date, the concept has not been translated into a small scale, which is the goal of this project.

“We are trying to design and build something that is much smaller and less expensive than the current system. Because the satellite has to be ready to fly, we will have verified on the ground that this research is viable,” Gebre-Egziabher said.

GPS antennas on each side of the satellite, eight in total, are an integral part of the project’s success, said Jason Mintz, the Minnesat student project manager who completed a degree in aerospace engineering in December 2006. By taking two measurements at each end of the antennas and comparing the measurements, the team will be able to figure out the satellite’s orientation. Mintz said this system has the potential to replace current systems.

In addition to the antennas, the finished mini-satellite features an aluminum hexagonal structure covered with solar panels. The team has built a variety of components for the satellite, including a communication system, a flight computer, and an internal health monitoring and control device.

“A lot of what works on the ground doesn’t work in space, so we have to consider all the possibilities of what could happen in space,” Mintz said. “Will computer chips freeze in a radiation environment? What if a chip stops working? How do we reset it? Basically we have to find a way to use materials designed to work on the ground and modify them by replacing parts so they will work in space.”

Transforming students into engineers

For the students, the project has essentially been a labor of love. Participation is completely voluntary, and team members don’t earn traditional class credit for the work, instead, they squeeze it into schedules bursting with course work and part-time jobs, holing up in the team’s office in Akerman Hall on evenings and weekends.

According to Mintz, the team has become quite close, which comes as no surprise given the fact that they usually spend seven to eight hours a day, five or six days a week on the project, and even more during crunch times. And because they are the pioneering members of the project, they have learned everything as they go.

“This project has been especially challenging because there’s no precedent, and we can’t go look up what other people did before us,” Mintz said. “If we could go back and do it again, we could easily fix a lot of the mistakes we’ve made, both procedural type things and how to be more efficient.”

Another challenge the team has faced is securing the appropriate resources to make their mini- satellite a success. Participating teams receive a budget from the sponsoring organizations, but Mintz said, teams are allowed to use any additional money they raise and as many donated materials as they can secure.

By leveraging the aerospace and mechanics department’s existing relationships with local companies and alumni, the Minnesat team secured financial donations, as well as donations of parts, computer time, and help from local professionals. A donation from alumnus Richard DeLeo (Aero ’46, M.S. ’48), a retired vice president of Aeronautical Research at the former Rosemount Aerospace, as well as donations from companies such as Goodrich, Honeywell, Lockheed-Martin, and Tennant have helped the team improve their chances for success. 
“The money that we’re given to start really isn’t enough to do everything, so we rely on donations from businesses,” said Gebre-Egziabher, who also manages the team’s budget. “We’re always looking for more outside knowledge and resources that will help us continue to grow this program.”

Gebre-Egziabher said throughout this process he has been continually amazed by how quickly the students became engineers and by the sheer volume of skills they acquired along the way. These skills, everything from giving presentations to working with vendors to wiring electrical systems, cannot always be learned in the classroom.

“One of the truly amazing things about this project is seeing how undergraduates have grown to look, talk, and walk like engineers,” he said. “They are learning skills they never thought they’d have to learn to be successful aerospace engineers.”

No matter the outcome of the competition, the University’s first Nanosat team has found success. The students all contributed to a project with a real customer and a real finished product, while researching a topic that could change the industry.

“This is real-world engineering, and we are doing the same things we’d be doing if we worked for a company,” said Mintz. “We get a big piece of the pie on this project because the team is so small. Instead of doing the same thing over and over again on a piece of the project, like you might do on other student projects, we get to work on a huge variety of things. That’s something you don’t often get to do as a student, other than at this University.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION www.aem.umn.edu/proj-prog/nanosat/