Big Red Sat-1

Introduction

This repository contains the original designs for the Big Red Sat-1 1U CubeSat, conceived, designed, and launched by a multi-disciplinary team of middle schoolers and high schoolers from the Nebraska public school system, as well as undergraduate students and graduate students from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The goal of this scientific mission is to characterize the performance and degradation of experimental perovskite solar cells from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory while in low earth orbit. To accomplish this, a custom precision curve tracer was designed along with a low-Ohm analog multiplexer that was integrated with Near Space Launch's 1U FastBus CubeSat Platform, which incorporates an electrical power system and Iridium satellite communication system for telemetry.

Electrical connections to the perovskite solar cell samples were made using pogo-pins, with the temperature of each sample being collected with a high-precision temperature sensor affixed to their back face with EP30-2 epoxy. The enclosure was designed to be airtight to prevent degradation due to humidity and oxygen, so a pressure and humidity sensor were included to monitor changes in this performance. Since the final samples had a coverslip epoxied to protect the perovskite layer, the airtight property was considered a redundancy.

Big Red Sat-1 was integrated into the Nanoracks CubeSat Deployer 27 (NRCSD27) on 12 December 2023 and launched on 21 March 2024 on the SpaceX CRS-30 mission.

Big Red Sat-1 was deployed from NRCSD27 by Voyager Space on 18 April 2024 at 18:05:09 UTC (Deployment Clip). The satellite made first communication with the operations team at 03:00:10 UTC on 19 April 2024. The satellite deorbited sometime after 23:41:51 UTC on 1 August 2024 after 105 days of operation.

TLE Data

Up to date TLE data and visualizations

Launch Patch

Original concept by Morgan Hurtz, branding by Vince Orsi.

Current Satellite Location

SatNOGS DB - Big Red Sat-1

Prototyping Designs

• Prototype curve tracers for high altitude balloons
• Prototype digital potentiometer curve tracer
• Prototype resistor ladder curve tracer in LaunchPad form factor
• Prototype analog multiplexer in LaunchPad form factor
• Pressure testing setup with ESP32 and data
• Payload breakout board to interact with perovskite cells in payload
• Temperature sensor prototyping
• Neopixel perovskite pixel isolator
• Prototype flight computer with curve tracer and multiplexer
• Magnet mounting jig for orbit alignment magnet
• Ossila AM1.5 standoff and mounts
• Tooling for building the payload

Final Designs

• Flight computer with curve tracer and analog multiplexer
• Secondary payload with IMU and relay
• Tag-Connect programming and data interface
• Perovskite contact temperature and humiditiy sensor
• Perovskite pogo pin board
• Perovskite payload enclosure

Software Developed

• NSL-EPS-Arduino, an Arduino library to communicate with the NSL electrical power system and radio
• FSS100-Arduino, an Arduino library to communicate with the FSS100 sun vector sensor to detect position of sun
• pyOssila, a Python library to communicate with the AM1.5 sun simulator
• Flight firmware for Big Red Sat-1

Satellite Exploded View Render

https://github.com/wsarce/Big-Red-Sat-1/assets/22334349/7d4744a6-e3ca-4aac-ab56-a3370dd9aef9

Contact

For questions, contact either Karen Stelling (kstelling2@unl.edu) or Walker Arce (wsarcera@gmail.com).

Citation

Arce, W., & Murch-Shafer, J. (2023). Big Red Sat-1 (Version v1.0) [Computer software & hardware]. https://github.com/wsarce/Big-Red-Sat-1

Funding and Collaboration

This work would not be possible without the generous assistance of our donors and collaborators, listed in alphabetical order below. 1. Ameritas 2. Acklie Charitable Foundation 3. Cooper Foundation 4. CubeSat Launch Initiative 5. Ethel S. Abbott Charitable Foundation 6. Individual Donors 7. Millard Public Schools Foundation 8. Monolith 9. NASA 10. NASA Nebraska Space Grant 11. National Renewable Energy Laboratory 12. Rhodes College 13. Rodgers Foundation 14. University of Nebraska-College of Engineering 15. Oklahoma University

Media

April 21, 2021 - NASA selects Nebraska students satellite to orbit in space

March 6, 2024 - Big Red Sat Team readies for ISS launch

March 15, 2024 - Young Nebraska scientists built a satellite, it's now headed to space

March 18, 2024 - NASA Set to Launch Four CubeSats to Space Station

March 21, 2024 - Nebraska students launch satellite into space

March 25, 2024 - NASA Space X resupply rocket launches Nebraska CubeSat into outer space

March 29, 2024 - Satellite launch a success for Nebraska Engineering team

April 22, 2024 - Nebraska's first research satellite reaches International Space Station

Dataset Metadata

The following table is necessary for this dataset to be indexed by search engines such as Google Dataset Search.