In-Flight Experience of the Cibola Flight Experiment Satellite
- Paper number
IAC-07-B4.4.01
- Author
Mr. Philip Davies, Surrey Space Centre, University of Surrey, United Kingdom
- Coauthor
Mrs. Diane Roussel-Dupre, Los Alamos National Laboratory, United States
- Coauthor
Prof. Martin Sweeting, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd., United Kingdom
- Year
2007
- Abstract
Los Alamos National Laboratory together with Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd built the Cibola Flight Experiment Satellite (CFESat) between 2004 and 2006. The satellite was launched on 22nd February 2007 on the US Air Force Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) using the EELV’s Secondary Payload Adapter (ESPA). CFESat was one of 4 satellites mounted on the ESPA ring below DARPA’s Orbital Express Satellite. Los Alamos’s CFESat payload is a reconfigurable processor that will survey portions of the VHF and UHF radio spectra. The experiment uses networks of reprogrammable, Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) to process the received signals for ionospheric and lightning studies. The objective is to detect and measure impulsive events that occur in a complex background. It will also validate the on-orbit use of commercial, reconfigurable FPGA technology utilizing several different single-event upset mitigation schemes. Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd provided the CFESat bus that is based upon the avionics from SSTL’s current generation of enhanced microsatellites used on missions such as the disaster monitoring constellation (DMC) and TopSat. The ESPA-compatible structure is new and the high power demands of the payload have been satisfied by the provision of deployed solar panels employing triple junction GaAs cells mounted onto carbon fibre. The paper will present an overview of the satellite development activities summarising the key elements of the design and the assembly integration and test. The paper will then provide a description of the launch campaign activities and the satellite commissioning looking at both bus and payload. Finally the paper will conclude with preliminary results from the operation of the reprogrammable payload.
- Abstract document