How important are small satellites to our industry’s ongoing health and long-term financial viability? Please, judge for yourself…

Let’s initiate this examination of some of the elements of the ever-increasing small satellite market by taking a look at NASA. The agency has been running their Nano-Satellite Launch Challenge for some time and they recently signed on with the Space Florida Small Satellite Research Center to run their prize competitions for the Centennial Challenges (there have been 22 such challenges since 2005). The purpose of this challenge is to launch satellites that possess a mass of 2.2 pounds (1 kg.) minimum into Earth’s orbit, and this must be accomplished twice within a one week time span. With a purse of $2 million, these craft may be small satellites, but their rewards are of major proportions. Hoped for is the realization that the expense of launching small satellites will be in the cost range of what is required to send secondary payloads, obviously with the goal of attracting customers from the academic environs as well as also commercial and government clients.

When you take a look at NASA and their small satellites programs, the NPP project is a must view... when the NPP primary spacecraft was successfully launched from Vandenburg AFB in California, there were six CubeSats aboard. They included...

– AubieSat-1, developed by Auburn University
– DICE (actually, two satellites), developed by Utah State University
– Explorer-1 (PRIME) Flight Unit 2, developed by Montana State University
– M-Cubed, from the University of Michigan
– TAX-2, also from the University of Michigan.

With a rather packed fairing, these CubeSats are part of the agency’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) program. Due to the shape of these small satellites, they have been monikered as CubeSats. Most CubeSats weigh no more than 2.2 pounds, possess a volume of around one quart, and are about four inches in size.

Those selected by NASA for this program are designed to accomplish a variety of projects, including the test of emerging technologies as well as to examine the viability of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components. The latter could play an important role in future considerations of satellite use, as they would certainly save costs and reduce inventory expenses.

To place these CubeSats into orbit, NASA adapted the Poly-Picosatellite Orbital Deployer (PPD) that was designed and manufactured by California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, in conjunction with Stanford University. This arrangement has proven to be most capable on other Department of Defense (DoD) commercial launches.

Other NASA small satellite accomplishments include the Nanosail-D, which spent more than 240 days in Earth’s orbit with the first-ever, solar sail deployment. NASA’s research team continues to analyze the data from NanoSail-D to determine how this new technology can be used by future satellites.

Combining both commercial and military aspects, the U.S. Air Force’s Space Test Program STP-S26 included four secondary payload satellites. Launched by a Minotaur IV launch vehicle from Alaska Aerospace’s Kodiak Launch Complex on Kodiak Island in Alaska, there was FASTSAT (Fast, Affordable, Science and Technology SATellite) which was designed to increase the opportunities for secondary, scientific and technological payloads, also known as “rideshares.”

Again, a view to reduced cost was a goal of the project as well as to enable various academic, government and industry researchers to engage in experiments on an autonomous satellite at more affordable cost. Also onboard , there was the Formation Autonomous Spacecraft with Thruster, Relnav, Attitude and Crosslink (much easier simply to say FASTRAC), the STPSat-2 itself, and the FalconSat-5 (FS-5).

NASA has also developed the Edison Small Satellite Demonstration Missions. A series of NASA-focused small satellite demo missions will be run to accelerate small spacecraft development for the agency for commercial and other space sector users. The focus will be on candidate identification. Those who offer game-changing and/or crosscutting potential for flight, improve or create new capabilities for lower cost, and/or satellite communication/remote observation and space physics, and the ability to demo new apps (such as biological and physical research, servicing, space debris removal and planetary investigations), will be in the selection running. Hands-on experience for university students will be afforded with each project and NASA will manage a close coordination with programs under development at Air Force Research Laboratory and the Operationally Responsive Space Office. “Small spacecraft” is defined as ESPA class (180 kg.) or less, targeting a specific class of small spacecraft with wet mass ranges:

– Minisatellite, 100 kilograms or higher
– Microsatellite, 10-100 kilograms
– Nanosatellite, 1-10 kilograms
– Picosatellite, 0.01-1 kilograms
– Femtosatellite, 0.01-0.1 kilograms

The Edison Program anticipates two types of missions: Subsystem flight validation missions and mission capability demonstrations. The total funding by NASA under this program will range from approximately $1 million to $20 million, with cost-sharing “encouraged,” but not a requirement or a selection criterion. Additional information is available by emailing Andrew Petro at andrew.j.petro@nasa.gov.

Scheduled to be launched during 2012, 2013 and 2014 are small satellite payloads that are approximately four inches long, a volume of one quart, and weigh less than three pounds. Known as CubeSats due to their cube-shape, these satellites are usually carried as auxiliary payloads and address various aspects of education, exploration, operations, science or technology investigations. As part of NASA’s Strategic Plan and the Education Strategic Coordination Framework, NASA will make their selections as to which satellites will be launched by January 30th of 2012.

From the first two launch initiatives, 32 payloads were selected for the short-list, and represented 18 states.

The U.S. military is certainly onboard with small satellites. In April of 2009, the U.S. Army took delivery of eight, 4 kg. satellites, each one weighing less than 10 pounds, for placement into LEO. Then, the first U.S. Army launch to occur in 50 years took place in December of 2010 when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted SMDC One into orbit as an auxiliary payload with the Dragon spacecraft. The size of a loaf of bread, this small satellite’s objective was to receive data from a ground transmitter and then relay that data directly to a ground station. When the nanosatellite deployed its receiver antennas, despite being in a tumbling mode, contact was made by SMDC One with the ground station located at Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command/U.S. Army Forces Strategic Command (USASMDC/ARSTRAT) at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama, and a health report was transmitted.

Despite the small satellite’s low orbital altitude of 200 miles, the horizon footprint offered a 1,200 mile / 1,9270 kilometer radius. This allowed the satellite to gain line-of-sight to the SMDC/ARSTRAT Battle Lab in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Ground stations overflight occurred 15 times per day. Packetized image and text data downlinked directly to the Battle Lab.

On January 12th, a power failure did terminate the small satellite’s functions and its orbit decayed. A sure sign of success is that the U.S. Army’s SMDC/ARSTRAT is readying more nanosatellites — four are scheduled for obit in 2012.

Accompanying this effort is the Multipurpose NanoMissile System (MNMS), based upon a proven rocket artillery family. In less than 24 hours, nanosatellites could be stacked and launched, with a cost per launch of under $1 million. The NanoMissile should be able to launch up to 22 pounds (10 kilograms) into LEO, (providing satellite constellation augmentation when needed by commanders.) John London, of SMDC’s Space and Cyberspace Technology Directorate, said, “There is an emerging seriousness in DoD that these satellites [small satellites] would be very beneficial to the warfighter.” Fellow Space and Cyberspace Technology Directorate manager David Weeks said the Army is serious about small satellites, which the Army sees as crucial to getting information down to the Brigade Combat Team level. Richard White of SMDC’s Space and Cyberspace Technology Directorate said the images delivered by the small satellites are considered unclassified, and could be shared with America’s allies. Though not up to the clarity of high resolution images long used by the defense community, he said the images give the essential information needed by warfighters. “There is a difference between what the Army is doing and what the intelligence community is doing,” adding that a constellation of Kestrel Eyes would provide the persistent theater coverage needed by the Army. Kestral Eye is a small, low cost, visible imagery satellite demonstrator that offers the tactical-level ground component war-fighter real-time imagery.

Smaller satellites are being tested all over the globe. In August of 2011, Russian cosmonauts at the ISS released a 30 kg. satellite named Kedr, which was built by students to honor Yuri Gargin’s first manned-mission into space. Although the second antenna of the satellite was not deployed properly from the satellite, Kedr was able to send data back to Earth as originally planned, although performance was degraded. The satellite remained aloft for approximately nine months.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is planning to launch small satellites during a demo mission in September of 2012. Using an unusual launch aspect, these small satellites will actually gain space from the agency’s Kibo manned experimental facility aboard the International Space Station, with the ISS robotic arm then releasing the satellites into space. The small satellites planned for this excursion include RAIKO, at 2U size; FITSAT-1, at 1U size, and WE WISH, also at 1U size. (1U equals 1.75-inches (44.45mm) of rack height, and are the maximum dimensions.

A student CubeSat project from Poland, the PW-Sat, has been delivered to the European Space Agency’s ESTEC technical center in the Netherlands and is scheduled to ride into orbit as one of seven aboard the first VEGA rocket, with a hoped-for launch date between January 26th and the first week of February this year. This will be Poland’s first satellite and is a project led by the Warsaw University of Technology. A few months later, Poland’s BRITE-PL “Lem”, a scientific satellite, is expected to be launched aboard a Dnepr rocket.

One of the European Space Agency’s small satellite success stories is their Proba-1 microsatellite, which has just celebrated its in-orbit status of 10 years, having become initially operational in 2001. Proba is the acronym for PRoject for OnBoard Autonomy. As stated by Frank Preuad’homme of QinteiQ Space, “Proba-1 remains the most agile and stable satellite platform in its range. These attributes are a prerequisite for high performance remote sensing.” This small satellite started out as a technology demonstrator and ended up becoming an EO mission, acquiring some 20,000 environmental science images via its Compact High Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (CHRIS). Those images have been accessed by 446 research groups in 60 countries. What makes the Proba-1 unusual is that it rolls in its orbit to capture images, using spinning reaction wheels that are guided by a startrack to roll up to 25 degrees side-to-side and 55 degrees along its path.

There were 10 European countries and Canada involved in the construction of ESA’s Proba-2 satellite, which launched on November 2, 2009, with the SMOS satellite, part of the ESA’s Earth Observation Envelope Program. The two space weather experiments aboard were developed by a consortium from Czechoslovakia — the Institute of Atmospheric Physics and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Aboard were 17 technological developments and four scientific experiments. The goal of the Proba small satellite series is to ensure that small companies can have access to space and give them the experience necessary to ensure European industries remain competitive and innovative.

Proba-3 is in its preparatory study phase and will be comprised of two independent, three-axis stabilized spacecraft flying close to one another, with the ability to accurately control the attitude and separation of the two craft. Using either cold-gas or electrical thrusters for agile maneuvering, and both radio-frequency and optical (laser-based) metrology techniques for accurate position measurement and control, the combined system is expected to achieve a relative positioning accuracy of the order of 100 microns over a separation range of 25 to 250m. The launch is expected sometime in the 2015 to 2016 timeframe.

A total of nine CubeSats will be launched by Vega, all housed within P-POD deployment systems, which themselves will be mounted on the LARES primary payload. The CubeSats were developed by six European countries and include…

– Xatcobeo (a collaboration of the University of Vigo and INTA, Spain)
– Robusta (University of Montpellier 2, France)
– E-St@r (Politecnico di Torino, Italy)
– Goliat (University of Bucharest, Romania)
– PW-Sat (Warsaw University of Technology, Poland)
– MaSat-1 (Budapest University of Technology & Economics, Hungary)
– UniCubeSat GG (Universitá di Roma ‘La Sapienza’, Italy)

The Vega itself was designed to deliver smaller satellites into LEO or SEO.

Scottish-based Clyde Space has been involved in the small satellite market for years. Not only has the firm developed double-deployed solar panels for CubeSats that can increase the generated power required for various missions and orbits, the Company has also developed a CubeSat Shop. When you consider more than 40 percent of all CubeSat missions fly hardware from Clyde Space, they would have an extremely competent “handle” on vendor products of the highest quality for such spatial endeavors. The shop offers everything from the CubeSat platforms themselves to on-board computers, harnesses, batteries, structures, ground stations, and more.

A leader in the small satellite revolution is Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL), which is owned by EADS Astrium NV. Working on the U.K.’s technology demonstration satellite TechDemoSat-1, the Company completed a milestone with the successful testing of the engineering model of the first payload, which is a novel, charged particle spectrometer design. The Charged Particle Spectrometer (ChaPS), built by UCL’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory (UCL-MSSL), has a form factor of a 1U CubeSat. It will demonstrate a payload design that combines the capabilities of multiple analyzers by using four miniaturized sensors to perform simultaneous electron-ion detection. Each of the sensors is optimized to carry out electrostatic analysis of the different space plasma populations expected in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

ChaPS is extremely attractive as it saves mass, power and volume — and, ultimately, mission cost — while providing an enabling technology for future space missions, such as ESA’s proposed JUICE mission to Jupiter. Its low cost also opens up new applications for such instrumentation that were simply not feasible in the past.

ChaPS is one of eight British payloads that will be flown on TechDemoSat-1 which is the first collaborative U.K. Space Agency mission. Funded by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), the U.K. Space Agency and the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA), TechDemoSat-1 is being built by SSTL to demonstrate the advanced capabilities of small satellite technology and provide invaluable in-flight demonstrations of new British equipment and technologies. TechDemoSat-1 is due to launch in 2012. The U.K. Space Agency is currently in early discussions with the European Space Agency regarding a suitable launch for TechDemoSat-1 (Please read the TechDemoSat-1 below for more information.)

Since 1981, SSTL has built and launched 36 satellites and has provided training and development programs, consultancy services, and mission studies for ESA, NASA , international governments and commercial customers, with its innovative approach that is changing the economics of space.

In India, a new CubeSat communication system was unveiled during the recent Hamfest India 2011. A 435/145MHz linear transponder, with a bandwidth of 590kHz and capable of one to three watts PEP output, was described by Mr. Ganesan Namachivayam. AMSAT-India, part of a global organization of radio amateurs interested in satellites, also plans to develop a smaller, linear transporter for CubeSats that can support a data rate of 1200 to 9600 bps via a 435MHz half-duplex narrow-band FM transceiver and is also able to operate as a Morse Code beacon. More information regarding AMSAT India.

Vietnam’s first Earth observation satellite is being constructed by Astrium, with Spacebel of Belgium also being brought into construction mix for a 100 kg. EO spacecraft that will pack a 2.5m resolution black and white, and a 10m color, optical imager. Engineers from Vietnam are already being trained by Astrium as well as by Qinetiq Space of Belgium, a member of the Spacebel consortium.

Consider QB50 — an international network of 50 CubeSats in LEO for lower thermosphere and re-entry research. Why 50 CubeSats? According to the QB50 site, a single CubeSat is simply too small to carry the sensors required for significant scientific research. With a large number of such spacecraft addressing the issue, scientific questions can be addressed that would, otherwise, be inaccessible. With lower cost considerations, and the fact that even if a few of the CubeSats fail, mission objectives could still be achieved.

This data gathering would be complimentary to the remote-sensing observations by EO satellite instruments as well as ground observations with lidars and radars. The launches would occur from Murmansk in northern Russia into a circular orbit at about 320km altitude, with an inclination of 79 degrees. Orbital lifetime is expected to be approximately three months. The third QB50 Workshop will be conducted on February 2, 2012, following a major CubeSat Symposium running from January 30th to February 1st, in Brussels.

What are the analysts forecasting for small satellites? Marco Caceres, lead analyst for the Teal Group’s World Space Systems Briefing, said, “We’re seeing an upward trend in nanosatellites and picosatellites that are being launched… We’ve seen more nanosats and picosats go up in the past four years than in the previous 16 years, and we expect this trend to continue. The kind of LEO launch activity that we are projecting has not occurred since the first-generation of small mobile communications satellites was orbited in the second half of the 1990s. The difference between now and then is that, in addition to the mobile comsats, we will now also have dozens of tinier satellites weighing between 1-20 kilograms that will be headed to LEO, thus making for an unusually robust segment of the launch services market.” According to Caceres, the launch programs that will most benefit from the boom in LEO launch services will be Russia’s Soyuz rocket, which is commercially marketed by Arianespace, and to a lesser extent, SpaceX’s Falcon 1, Eurockot Launch Services’ Rockot, ISC Kosmotras’ Dnepr, and India’s PSLV. Teal Group Corporation website.

During the 24th Annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites, research and analysis firm Futron presented a white paper entitled “Emerging Opportunities for Low-Cost Small Satellites in Civil and Commercial Space,” authored by Jeff Foust. His paper identified emerging opportunities through renewed interest in technology development and commercial scientific research. However such is offset by emerging competitive threats to small satellites in the form of hosted payloads on larger spacecraft, as well as commercial suborbital vehicles underling active development. One offset for small satellite implementation would be to take “other steps smallsat proponents can take now, primarily by utilizing excess capacity on larger launch vehicles that today is often wasted. One solution would be for NASA, or another government agency, to work with other government customers and industry launch providers to establish a coordination scheme to identify missions with excess capacity and payloads by agencies, companies, and universities seeking access to orbit, be it for clusters of CubeSats or for larger smallest.” You can download the entire Futron report here.

The wealth of information regarding smaller satellites is indicative of the importance these spacecraft play in the commercial and government/military projects today and in the future. Given lower construction and launch costs, and the ability to more readily prepare technological investigations and orbit EO/sensory tools, small satellites are paving the way for more effective use of satellite technology, given the budgetary concerns confronting the industry.

As Sir Martin Sweeting stated, back in October of 2008 regarding his Company’s (SSTL) work with Russia’s ISC Kosmotras, “The provision of affordably priced launch services is critical to the success of the new small satellite business...”

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DARPA's SYSTEM F6
System F6 seeks to demonstrate the feasibility and benefits of a satellite architecture wherein the functionality of a traditional "monolithic" spacecraft is delivered by a cluster of wirelessly-interconnected modules capable of sharing their resources and utilizing resources found elsewhere in the cluster. Such architecture enhances the adaptability and survivability of space systems, while shortening development timelines and reducing the barrier-to-entry for participation in the national security space industry.

The program is predicated on the development of open interface standards — from the physical wireless link layer through the network protocol stack, including the real-time resource sharing middleware and cluster flight logic — to enable the emergence of a space "global commons" which would enhance the mutual security posture of all participants through interdependence. A key program goal is the industry-wide promulgation of these open interface standards for the sustainment and development of future fractionated systems and low-cost commercial hardware for the sustained development of future fractionated systems beyond the System F6 demonstration.

The program will culminate with an on-orbit demonstration in 2015 of the key functional attributes of fractionated architectures. The technology objectives and program plan are driven by a small set of functional on-orbit demonstrations. Program success will be measured by the successful completion of these demonstrations, designed to prove the highest-risk elements of the architecture to potential transition partners and early adopters. The demonstrations will occur in low Earth orbit (LEO), and will be approximately six months in duration.

The functional demos are as follows:

– Capability for semi-autonomous long-duration maintenance of a cluster and cluster network, and the addition and removal of spacecraft modules to/from the cluster and cluster network

– Capability to securely share resources across the cluster network with real-time guarantees and among payloads or users in multiple security domains

– Capability to autonomously reconfigure the cluster to retain safety- and mission-critical functionality in the face of network degradation or component failures

– Capability to perform a semi-autonomous defensive cluster scatter and re-gather maneuver to rapidly evade a debris-like threat

The general philosophy that underlies the technical approach and structure of the System F6 program is to arrive at the on-orbit functional demonstrations enumerated above through a disaggregated series of efforts.

Two key artifacts will be developed in the course of the program. The first is the F6 Developer's Kit (FDK), which is a set of open source interface standards, protocols, behaviors, and reference implementations thereof, necessary for any party, without any contractual relationship to any System F6 performer, to develop a new module that can fully participate in a fractionated cluster. The second is the F6 Technology Package (F6TP), which is a hardware instantiation of the wireless connectivity, packet-switched routing, and encryption capable of hosting the protocol stack and resource-sharing and cluster flight software needed to enable an existing spacecraft bus to fully participate in a fractionated cluster. In essence, the F6TP is a hardware instantiation of the FDK.

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TechDemoSat-1 (TDS-1): The Mission

U.K. industry and academia are working together with Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) on a new innovative satellite that will trial U.K. space technologies and hopefully win substantial international business for the companies collaborating on the project.

The TechDemoSat concept envisages a baseline platform, derived from heritage technology which will function as an 'in-orbit test facility' for the U.K. Space Agency once launched, qualifying onboard payloads as well as U.K. satellite software.

The project is funded through two paying customers, TSB and SEEDA.  The satellite is based on the SSTL 150 platform developed for the Rapid Eye mission (built under contract to MacDonald Dettwiler Associates), however, modifications and upgrades will be made to the platform design to accommodate the payloads.

At around one meter cubed (roughly the size of a refrigerator or a dishwasher) and a light mass of around 150kg, TDS-1 will carry no less than eight payloads, plus a mixture of heritage and new product development systems from SSTL.  Among the new systems being considered to fly on the satellite is an enhanced on-board computer that will offer greater ability to conduct software experiments remotely, a new battery charge regulator, and newly qualified cell types on two of the solar panels.

The propulsion system will see a smaller tank size with a new high performance resistojet thruster along with new sun sensors in the Altitude and Orbital Control System (AOCS), adding increased accuracy to the previous sensors used. The total amount of technology on board has led the internal communications system to be operated on an upgraded CANbus to ensure noise immunity, and minimal contention between nodes. CANbus is standard protocol that includes the physical level (voltage levels and pin connections) as well as defines a software driver level protocol. This gives a bus which can be connected to all modules on the spacecraft, allowing decisions on module priority.

A large mission for a small satellite, the successful delivery and ultimate decommissioning of TechDemoSat-1 will enable UK industry and academia to qualify onboard payloads and UK satellite software, thereby overcoming the problem of a lack of in-orbit flight heritage that often becomes a major barrier to commercial success in the space industry.

More than your average payload ability
The payloads on board the satellite currently make up four suites — a Maritime suite, Space Environment suite, Air and Land Monitoring suite and a Platform Technology suite.

The Maritime Suite
The Maritime Suite consists of SSTL's Sea State Payload (SSP).  An evolution of SSTL's SGR-RESI payload, the SSP uses an enhanced GPS receiver to monitor reflected signals to determine ocean roughness. By using components from Astrium's Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) to operate as a coarse altimeter, the SSP pulses radio waves onto the ocean. The echo waveforms that return give an independent measurement of the sea state and the information gathered can then be applied to meteorology, oceanography, climate science and ice monitoring. Astrium Portsmouth will also contribute an antenna design using the same technology as the SAR antenna but on a smaller scale.

The Space Environment Suite
The Space Environment Suite consists of the MuREM, ChaPS, HMRM and the LUCID payloads. MuREM, supplied by the Surrey Space Centre, provides a flexible, miniature radiation environment and effects monitor which can be flown as a standard radiation alarm and diagnostic package, enhancing the security of future space missions.

The Charged Particle Spectrometer (ChaPS), supplied by the Mullard Space Science Laboroatory (MSSL), is the first prototype of a new class of compact instruments to detect electrons and ions, building on 40 years of experience at UCL-MSSL. ChaPS will demonstrate the principles on-orbit and open the way to use the techniques on other missions where mass and power are at a premium, for example spaceweather constellations. ChaPS will operate in three modes, to measure electrons in the auroral regions, electrons and ions in other regions and also to measure the spacecraft potential

The Highly Miniaturised Radiation Monitor (HMRM), supplied by Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Imperial College, is a lightweight, ultra compact radiation monitor designed to measure total radiation dose, particle flux rate and identify particle species (electrons, protons and ions). The instrument is designed to provide housekeeping data on the radiation environment to spacecraft operators to correlate the performance of spacecraft subsystems, raise alerts during periods of enhanced radiation flux and to assist in diagnosing spacecraft system malfunctions.

TechDemoSat-1 also reaches beyond the U.K. space industry to incorporate the U.K. scientists of the future. As the winning entry of a U.K. space competition developed by Sixth form college, The Langston Star Centre, the LUCID (Langton Ultimate Cosmic ray Intensity Detector) payload will also fly on the space environment suite. LUCID allows characterization of the energy, type, intensity and directionality of high energy particles. The device makes use of COTS sensor technology developed at CERN (The European Organisation for Nuclear Research) using Timepix chips from the Medipix Collaboration. Part of a family of photon counting pixel detectors, Timepix allows for recording time information regarding when events occur relative to when the shutter opens. The data obtained from LUCID is of interest to NASA in terms of radiation monitoring but also provides inspiration to the next generation of physicists and engineers by giving school students the opportunity to work alongside research scientists and take part in authentic research.

Air and Land Monitoring Suite
Currently, the Air and Land Monitoring Suite consists of a single Compact Modular Sounder (CMS) system being provided by Oxford University's Planetary Group and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. The CMS is a modular infrared remote sensing radiometer unit, designed to easily mix and match sub-systems and fly multiple versions on multiple platforms at low cost by tailoring it to specific customer requirements once flight heritage has been proven.

Platform Technology Suite
While the companies and academia organizations flying payloads on the other three suites will make full use of the three year mission on board TDS-1 to prove their technology, Cranfield University must wait until the end of life decommissioning activity to prove theirs. One of two technologies within the Platform Technology Suite, Cranfield is working on a 'de-orbit sail' that will safely bring TDS-1 back into Earth's atmosphere to burn up at the end of the mission. The other payload in the Platform Technology Suite is the CubeSAT ACS payload, supplied by SSBV, which is a complete 3-axes attitude determination and control subsystem designed for Cubesats.