February 1, 2013
On the evening of Monday, February 4, the UT Tower will be lit up in burnt orange with a #1 to celebrate The University of Texas Satellite Design Lab's (TSL) first place victory in the national University Nanosatellite Program.
The TSL research group, under the direction of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Professor Glenn Lightsey, was selected to receive first place by a panel of expert judges at the US Air Force competition for their satellite known as ARMADILLO (Atmosphere Related Measurements And Detection of submILLimeter Objects).
The competition, which is sponsored by the US Air Force, selects ten universities to design and build their own satellites over a period of two years. After two years, a panel of experts judges the satellites at Air Force Research Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. UT’s entry was selected as the nation’s first place winner in the CubeSat class.
ARMADILLO is a three unit CubeSat that contains two instruments. CubeSats are miniature handheld satellites that are generally built using commercial off-the shelf electronics components, making them very cost-effective. The ARMADILLO satellite’s dimensions measure 10 cm x 10 cm x 34 cm.
Once in orbit, ARMADILLO will measure space debris, which will allow scientists to characterize it and better understand the sources and life cycles of space pollution. Space debris is a hazard for operational spacecraft. Currently, only space objects larger than 10 cm can be tracked by ground-based radars.
The UT CubeSat’s primary payload, the Piezo Dust Detector (PDD), was contributed by Baylor University’s CASPER lab. It will be used to measure small impacts to the satellite caused by space debris. The secondary payload is a GPS receiver, which is being built at The University of Texas Radionavigation Lab. The receiver will be used to measure GPS radio occultations and provide precise orbit determination.
“We’re making these small satellites with much more advanced technology and capability than has ever been done before,” Lightsey said. “This will lead to breakthroughs with forecasting the weather, studying the origins of the universe, discovering Earth-like planets in other solar systems, developing better telecommunications and more.”
The award comes with a two-year grant of $55,000 per year and assistance from the Air Force to prepare the satellite for launch. The group plans to refine the design, build the flight unit, upgrade the ground station and eventually launch their satellite into space where it will collect data and perform the scientific mission.
ARMADILLO will launch sometime toward the end of 2014 or early 2015. It will be launched as a secondary spacecraft aboard a NASA rocket.
