Newman, James H.

This proposal describes the effort associated with supporting the FalconSat-7 satellite in its use of the MC3 CubeSat ground station system. FalconSat7 is an experiment of national interest built by the US Air Force Academy (USAFA) and Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) that is scheduled to launch about April 2018. This satellite supports DoD Space efforts in the emerging field of very small satellites and is an example of the collaborative work between NPS and AFIT in the area of very small satellites – CubeSats, in particular. Specifically, FalconSat-7 uses the Mobile CubeSat Command and Control (MC3) ground station network. With the advent of CubeSats and other very small satellites, the number of active satellites is growing, with many different space-to-ground communication architectures. This ground station research deals with the testing required to support the communication architecture used on the Colony II Bus, a government-provided CubeSat bus that is being used for FalconSat-7. The growing acceptance of the CubeSat, a very small satellite, as a means of accomplishing focused research objectives of national interest makes this project of great interest to the Space Systems Academic Group at NPS. The Naval Officers and other students in the NPS Space Systems Engineering and Operations curricula have the opportunity to participate in Directed Studies and Thesis research related to this proposal. The Space Systems curricula benefit from the opportunity to integrate laboratories which use active satellites in orbit and an active network of ground stations. In addition, this work supports the development of national capabilities in space to ultimately benefit the Naval Service and the warfighter.
Space Systems Academic Group
Department of Defense Space
DoD
2018