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.
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]
Miniaturized Electron and Proton Telescope (MERiT), is built by the NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and will return counts of high-energy solar energetic particles.
Vector Helium Magnetometer (VHM), being built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will measure the strength and direction of magnetic fields.
SwRI Spacecraft Integrator: Design, Assembly, Integration and Test
SwRI SATYR Command and Data Handling Unit
SwRI Flight Software
Clyde-Space AAC Electrical Power System
BCR MPPT converters
LiPo Batteries and
Deployable and Fixed Solar Arrays
VACCO MiPS Cold Gas Thruster
Blue Canyon Technologies XACT ADCS with Integrated Thruster Control
SwRI Spacecraft Structure Mechanical and Thermal (SMT)
NASA JPL/SDL IRIS X-Band Deep Space Transponder
NASA GSFC Mission Operations Center
NASA Deep Space Network Ground Communication
Flight results
After a successful launch of the SLS at 1:47 am EST on November 16 2022, The Orion/ICPS performed a Trans-Lunar Injection and separated.
Shortly thereafter, CuSP was deployed from its launch canister in the ICPS.
Twenty-three minutes after deployment, DSN received Open Loop Receiver (OLR) telemetry from CuSP indicated it had booted up, detumbled, deployed solar arrays, and assumed a SAFE, Sun-pointing, orientation.
It was operating perfectly until...
OLR monitoring of the radio signal indicated that the transmitter carrier signal vanished after transmitting for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
No cause has been determined for this end of transmission.
Multiple attempts to receive additional signals from the spacecraft failed through the end of 2022. No contact was made.
The CuSP team fully investigated a sudden battery temperature increase and found it was a telemetry failure. This was verified by comparing redundant indications of several parameters. The redundant indications did not show the suspected excursion. This failure was proven to be the failure of a temperature monitor which saturated the ADC inputs of several signals, but not their redundant monitors fed to an independent ADC.
The CuSP team fully investigated an anomalous high IRIS Radio temperature. JPL IRIS engineers traced it to a failure to update a scaling equation in the SMOC EGSE. Once the updated equation was applied, the temperature fell in line with all others.
Plans were to make another attempt during an expected focal convergence, however, no further contact attempts were made to contact the spacecraft.
Official end of mission was declared December 2023.
Gallery
CuSP is instrumented and placed in the Thermal Vacuum Chamber.
Dr. Mihir Desai, Principal Investigator, seen with CuSP
Dr. Don George, Mission Engineer, testing the Electrical Power System (EPS) on CuSP.
Dr. Gumby presenting the post deployment sequence of operations of CuSP to a NASA review panel.
CuSP weighs-in at a 'wet mass' of 10.2 kg, well within the 14 kg mass limit.
The 'Purple Hands' verify that CuSP fits into its dispenser. This dispenser pushes CuSP out of the launch vehicle.
The Principal Technician for CuSP, Raymond Doty, makes final 'Pack and Ship' preparations for CuSP.
Launches are separated by dots ( • ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ). Crewed flights are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).
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