MISC™ – A Novel Approach to Low-Cost Imaging Satellites

By severely limiting satellite size and weight, the popular CubeSat nanosatellite standard realizes noticeable cost savings over traditional satellites in the areas of design, manufacture, launch and operations. To date, there has been limited commercial utilization of CubeSat systems due to the widespread perception in industry that a 10 cm x 10 cm x 30 cm form factor is too constrained for payloads in support of useful missions. In this paper, we argue against this perception by presenting MISCTM, a 3U CubeSat capable of providing 7.5 m GSD multispectral imagery from a circular orbit of 540 km. Over an anticipated operational lifetime of 18 months, each MISC will be able to image over 75 million km, equivalent to approximately half the Earth’s landmass. MISC’s novel design combines a robust miniature imager module payload with an existing CubeSat Kit-based bus and a distributed ground station architecture. With anticipated order-of-magnitude cost savings when compared to current commercial offerings, MISC's lifetime system cost should represent an extremely attractive proposition to consumers of satellite imagery that wish to own and operate their own assets. MISC satellites will be available for commercial purchase in mid-2009. INTRODUCTION This paper introduces Pumpkin’s Miniature Imaging Spacecraft (MISC), a 3U CubeSat capable of providing commercial grade satellite imagery at a CubeSat-sized price. Building on Pumpkin’s space-proven CubeSat Kit family of nanosatellite components, MISC combines cost-saving commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) nanosatellite components with a custom imager payload and some other mission-specific parts. The extreme mass and volume limitations available under the CubeSat standard result in a tightly constrained design space. The first half of this paper describes this problem and proposes the components and configuration that we have found to be optimal. In the second half we discuss the operational environment for MISC, provide parameters of a sample mission, and present arguments for an owner / operator business model. THE CUBESAT STANDARD The CubeSat project was originally developed by Stanford University’s Space Systems Development Laboratory (SSDL) in conjunction with California Polytechnic State University, in order to provide standardized, low-cost access to space for nanosatellites. This standard sets limits on mass and volume, but provides for a common secondary launch solution through the P-POD deployment system. Since 2003, over 30 nanosatellites have been launched under this standard. A number of companies have developed COTS components for CubeSat subsystems such as power, communications, onboard processing, and attitude control. The number of non-experimental missions under the CubeSat standard has historically been limited due to the tight packaging requirements and scarcity of on-board power. However, substantial commercial interest has developed over the past year as both the National Science Foundation and the National Reconnaissance Office have announced plans to fund missions and component development. 3 Kalman 1 22 Annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites