NASA’s Athena Economical Payload Integration Price mission, or Athena EPIC, is a check launch for an revolutionary, scalable area automobile design to help future missions. The small satellite tv for pc platform is engineered to share sources among the many payloads onboard by managing routine features so the person payloads don’t need to.
This expertise leads to decrease prices to taxpayers and a faster path to launch.
“Growing the pace of discovery is foundational to NASA. Our means to leverage entry to revolutionary area applied sciences throughout federal businesses by business companions is the long run,” stated Clayton Turner, Affiliate Administrator for House Know-how Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters in Washington. “Athena EPIC is a worthwhile demonstration of the federal government at its greatest — serving humankind to advance information with current {hardware} configured to function with new applied sciences.”
The NOAA (Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the U.S. House Drive are authorities companions for this demo mission. Athena EPIC’s business associate, NovaWurks, supplied the area automobile, which makes use of a small satellite tv for pc platform assembled with a Hyper-Built-in Satlet, or HISat.
The HISat devices are related in nature to a toddler’s toy interlocking constructing blocks. They’re engineered to be constructed into bigger constructions known as SensorCraft. These SensorCraft can share sources with a number of payloads and conform to totally different shapes and sizes to accommodate them. This simply configurable, building-block structure permits quite a lot of flexibility with payload designs and ideas, in the end giving payload suppliers simpler, cheaper entry to area and elevated maneuverability between a number of orbits.
Scientists at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, designed and constructed the Athena sensor payload, which consists of an optical module, a calibration module, and a newly developed sensor electronics meeting. Athena EPIC’s sensor was constructed with spare components from NASA’s CERES (Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Power System) mission. A number of totally different generations of CERES satellite tv for pc and area station devices have tracked Earth’s radiation funds.
“As a substitute of Athena carrying its personal processor, we’re utilizing the processors on the HISats to regulate issues like our heaters and do a number of the management features that sometimes could be achieved by a processor on our payload,” stated Kory Priestley, principal investigator for Athena EPIC from NASA Langley. “So, that is merging an instrument and a satellite tv for pc platform into what we’re calling a SensorCraft. It’s a extra built-in method. We don’t want as many capabilities constructed into our key instrument as a result of it’s being delivered to us by the satellite tv for pc host. We receive larger redundancy, and it simplifies our payload.”
That is the primary HISat mission led by NASA. Conventional satellites, like those that host the CERES devices — are massive, typically the scale of a faculty bus, and carry a number of devices. They are typically customized items constructed with all of their very own {hardware} and software program to handle management, propulsion, cameras, carousels, processors, batteries, and extra, and typically even require two of the whole lot to protect in opposition to failures within the system. All of those components, plus the necessity for a bigger launch automobile, considerably improve prices.
This transformational method to getting devices into area can cut back the fee from billions to hundreds of thousands per mission. “Now we’re speaking about one thing a lot smaller — SensorCraft the scale of a mini fridge,” stated Priestley. “Should you do have failures on orbit, you’ll be able to exchange these rather more economically. It’s a really totally different method shifting ahead for Earth commentary.”
Athena EPIC is scheduled to launch July 22 as a rideshare on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg House Drive Base, California. The first NASA payload on the launch would be the TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) mission. The TRACERS mission is led by the College of Iowa for NASA’s Heliophysics Division inside the Science Mission Directorate. NASA’s Earth Science Division additionally supplied funding for Athena EPIC.
“Langley Analysis Middle has lengthy been a pacesetter in creating distant sensing devices for in-orbit satellites. As satellites turn out to be smaller, a much less conventional, extra environment friendly path to launch is required as a way to lower complexity whereas concurrently growing the worth of exploration, science, and expertise measurements for the Nation,” added Turner.
For extra info on NASA’s Athena EPIC mission:
https://science.nasa.gov/misshttps://science.nasa.gov/mission/athena/ion/athena/