Cornell University

University Nanosatellite Program

End of Semester Report

Andre Heil Fall 2013

CUSat University Nanosat-4 Program

Violet University Nanosat-6 Program

B30-A Rhodes Hall Ithaca, NY 14853

Andre Heil MAE 4900 CUSat/Violet Satellite Projects 1. Introduction

avh34 12/10/13

This has been my fifth semester as part of Cornells satellite teams and my third semester serving as their Ground Segment lead. With a year of experience as the Ground Segment lead under my belt I came into this semester prepared for the awaiting tasks. This was a crucial semester for the ground segment team as we had to finally utilize the ground station network that we had been working on so hard for the many past semesters. Our ground station network was finally put to the test as we demonstrated that it was a reliable link of communication between the Mission Control Center and CUSat. 2. Recruitment This semester, in preparation for CUSats launch, I recruited two new members, Mahak Goel and Qingyun Xie. They were recruited to help out since we were going to have dedicate a lot of time to tracking and establishing and maintaining communication with CUSat. Unfortunately one of our members, Arjun Biddanda, had left the team but we were still able to make tremendous progress and accomplish many things this semester. 2.1 Team Management Team management stayed very much the same from last with some exceptions. With Arjun gone, I took over operations at the Colorado Springs ground station. Muhammad remained in charge of the Redondo Beach ground station. Taking on two members and with the advent of CUSats launch it was difficult to find the time to get the two new members, Mahak and Qingyun, up to speed with the ground segment tasks and to teach them how to operate the ground stations. Because of that I feel as though I was not as good of a lead as I could have been. 2.2 Task Management We continued to use Trello to manage our tasks since it had been very successful last semester. Through Trello we were each able to know what tasks we had to complete and what other people had to work on. 3. From Last Semester At the end of last semester we had just finished preparing our ground stations for CUSats launch since we were expecting to launch the following summer. There wasnt a lot of work completed over the summer since we were just awaiting CUSats launch and not expecting to do any other work aside from operating the ground stations. 4. CUSats Launch CUSat was launched September 29th 2013 at noon. Up until that point the ground segment team and I had been working on ensuring that each of our ground stations would be capable of communicating with CUSat. We also debugged JSatTrak so that it would be able to Page 1

Andre Heil MAE 4900 CUSat/Violet Satellite Projects

avh34 12/10/13

route the packets successfully between the MCC and CUSat. Another task that I worked on was determining the ECEF vector that would allow us to track CUSat when it launched. The only issue with this was that JSatTrak does not accept ECEF vectors and it must be in the TLE format. I worked with Douglas Kaiser and Dan LaChapelle to make sure that this conversion from ECEF to TLE was successful. At CUSats launch we were given an ECEF vector and after converting the TLE format we began tracking CUSat with all of our ground stations. Approximately 8 hours after CUSat launched, we received our first packet at our HBO ground station! However although we were able to receive a packet, throughout the ground pass we were only able to receive just that one packet. This would mark the beginning of the many difficulties that we would encounter with maintaining communications with CUSat. 4.1 Maintaining Communications and Commanding During the early stages of CUSats launch we faced many issues maintaining communications; we were receiving packets intermittently and inconsistently. This was a serious issue that required immediate attention. This issue had arisen due to bad tracking information. Original ECEF vector that we were given was only valid for a few days before it was no longer a good prediction of where CUSat was in its orbit, we needed a better way to track CUSat. This better way came through the use of NORAD. A few days after launch NORAD had listed a number of unidentified objects in orbit from the Falcon 9 launch, one of which had to be CUSat. After a few more days of tracking these objects, we were able to identify Object B as CUSat. From there on out it was a lot easier to communicate with CUSat. Once we had good tracking data, we were able to finally send a command to CUSat. With commanding finally available to the Ops team, they were able to progress with the mission. 4.2 Ground Station Issues and Maintenance While we had expected for all of our ground stations to be able to communicate with CUSat (with the exception of KWAJ) in the end, it was really only HBO that was able to successfully communicate with CUSat both ways. The reason for this is that we were not able to test the other ground stations (RDB and COS) with any amateur satellites with before the launch. We had however tested COS last semester when we tracked RAX-2 and was able to receive packets. However when CUSat launched and we tried to communicate with it using COS, we werent even able to receive packets. After many hours of debugging with Dr. Richard Russel, we still werent able to determine why we couldnt communicate with CUSat. Dr. Russel even tried tracking other satellites and was no able to pick up any signals from any satellite whatsoever. At RDB we were able to receive packets from CUSat but, we were never successful in sending a command from that station. The reason as why this is so remains unknown. At our HBO ground station while we were able to communicate with CUSat, there were a couple of minor setbacks. One issue that we faced was that antenna had acquired a 45 degree elevation offset over the course of tracking CUSat. This made it impossible to communicate with CUSat until it was

Page 2

Andre Heil MAE 4900 CUSat/Violet Satellite Projects

avh34 12/10/13

fixed. Another setback HBO faced was that the KAM-XL had to be replaced since it was no longer to properly modulate and demodulate packets. 5. PIR Another tremendous task that the ground segment team faced was getting prepared for PIR. There still many requirements that had to be met for PIR that had not been met at the beginning of the semester. We worked closely with the T&C team to meet these requirements and make sure that we were read for PIR when it came. 5.1 Radio Communication One of the biggest issues that we were facing at the end of last semester was getting Violets flight radio, the Li-1 radio, to communicate with the ground station radio, the TS-2000. This issue was extremely problematic and was crucial for PIR. This semester Jeff, the T&C lead, and I met several times to work on getting these two radios to communicate with each other. After many meetings we were finally able to get the TS-2000 and KAM-XL to send a packet to the Li-1 radio and have it properly demodulated. The parameter that was changed that made this possible was to increase the XMITLVL parameter on the KAM-XL to its max value. This parameter controls the voltage level of the audio signal the KAM-XL produces to be sent to the TS-2000. Yet we still hadnt figured out how to send packets the other way. After many more meetings, Jeff and I were able to figure out that you have to set the TX preamble to a certain number of bytes before we can get reliable radio communication. With this discovery we had successfully established two way radio communication. 5.2 Simulated Communications The next step after achieving two way radio communication was to integrate the rest of the flight hardware (Radio IB, CDH IB, and flight computer). We worked closely with the power team to make this possible. We scheduled a day to go out to the fields by HBO to do the first simulated communications test. Although we were not successful that day, we were able to prove that our radios are able to communicate with each other even at full attenuation. With this concern out of the way, we moved simulated communication testing to the lab in B30-A. After several meetings between GS, T&C, and PWR we were finally able to get packets to flow from GS to the flight computer and back the GS. This was a major breakthrough that we were able to get done before PIR. 6. Other Work While I have outlined the most important tasks that I undertook this semester there were many other smaller tasks took on as well. I helped the T&C team with their antenna gain pattern testing, I helped construct the spare M2 antenna, and I wrote PFRs for the CUSat team and helped worked on establishing the GS and InControl link. Page 3

Andre Heil MAE 4900 CUSat/Violet Satellite Projects 7. Future Work

avh34 12/10/13

There are only a few more things that the GS team needs to accomplish. We need to work on the GS to InControl link and make sure thats working, make sure that Day in the Life goes smoothly from a GS perspective, modify JSatTrak for Violet, and make sure that the other ground stations work for Violets launch. These are the last few tasks that we need to accomplish before GS is done with all of its tasks. I think that in the next semester well be able to accomplish all of these tasks and be ready for Violets launch in the fall of 2014. 9. Referenced Documents and Other Work 1. 9600 GMSK Ground Station Compatibility Test Procedure (wiki) 2. 9600 GMSK Ground Station Compatibility Test Procedure (.docx) 3. PIR GS Slides 4. How to configure the KAM-XL to receive 9600 GMSK 5. KISS protocol 6. TS-2000 Bandwidth Issues 7. Settings for the TS-2000 8. List of 9600 GMSK Satellites 9. KAM-XL Manual 10. TS-2000 Manual

Page 4