MinXSS-1 CubeSat On-Orbit Pointing and Power Performance: The First Flight of the Blue Canyon Technologies XACT 3-axis Attitude Determination and Control System |
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Amir Caspi Submitted: 2019-08-26 13:02
The Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer (MinXSS) is a three-unit (3U) CubeSat designed for a three-month mission to study solar soft X-ray spectral irradiance. The first of the two flight models was deployed from the International Space Station in May 2016, and operated for one year before its natural deorbiting. This was the first flight of the Blue Canyon Technologies XACT 3-axis attitude determination and control system - a commercially available, high-precision pointingsystem. The performance of the pointing system on orbit was characterized, including performance at low altitudes where drag torque builds up. It was found that the pointing accuracy was 0.0042° - 0.0117° (15" - 42", 3 σ, axis dependent) consistently from 190 km - 410 km, slightly better than the specification sheet states. Peak-to-peak jitter was estimated to be 0.0073° (10 s-1) - 0.0183° (10 s-1) (26" (10 s-1) - 66" (10 s-1), 3 σ). The system was capable of dumping momentum until an altitude of 185 km. Small amounts of sensor degradation were found in the star tracker and coarse sun sensor. The mission profile did not require high-agility maneuvers, so it was not possible to characterize this metric. Without a GPS receiver, it was necessary to periodically upload ephemeris information to update the orbit propagation model and maintain pointing. At 400 km, these uploads were required once every other week; at ∼270 km, they were required every day. The power performance of the electric power system was also characterized, including use of a novel pseudo-peak power tracker - a resistor that limited the current draw from the battery on the solar panels. With 19 30% efficient solar cells and an 8 W system load, the power balance had 65% of margin on orbit. The current paper presents several recommendations to other CubeSat programs throughout.
Authors: James P. Mason, Matt Baumgart, Bryan Rogler, Chloe Downs, Margaret Williams, Thomas N. Woods, Scott Palo, Phillip C. Chamberlin, Stanley Solomon, Andrew Jones, Xinlin Li, Rick Kohnert, Amir Caspi
Projects: MinXSS
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Publication Status: Published -- Mason et al. 2017, J. Small Satellites, 6(3), 651
Last Modified: 2019-08-27 10:10
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