“Oh, and the satellite itself will be only about the size of a briefcase.” Our only hope is a large antenna,” Oudrhiri explained. Nothing as diminutive as the Mars satellite-which belongs to a class called CubeSats-had ever gone farther than low Earth orbit. The antenna would be stowed during launch, occupying only about 830 cubic centimeters. Shortly thereafter, it would unfurl to a size three times as large as the satellite itself. It would have to survive the 160-million-kilometer flight to the Red Planet, including the intense vibration of launch and the radiation and extreme temperatures of deep space. How hard could that be?įortunately, my colleagues and I love a challenge, and we welcomed the chance to push CubeSat technology to its limits. These tiny spacecraft have become the go-to vessel for researchers and startups doing Earth imaging and monitoring. Compared with traditional satellites, they are relatively inexpensive and small, weighing just a few kilograms, and they can be ready to launch in a matter of months, rather than the years it typically takes to prepare a standard spacecraft. Over time, the onboard sensors and processing that CubeSats can carry have been the beneficiaries of Moore’s Law advancements in electronics, growing more powerful and sophisticated, lighter in weight, and energy efficient. RainCube's Umbrella: The radar antenna for the tiny RainCube satellite folds up into a 10-by-10-by-15-centimeter canister. Upon deployment, its 30 ribs extend like an umbrella to form a parabolic dish that's still small enough to test in a thermal vacuum chamber. Photo: JPL/NASAīut a CubeSat’s small size can be a huge liability when it comes to communications. In particular, it’s been too difficult to outfit the satellites with antennas big enough to achieve high data rates or high-resolution radar. And so the tiny satellites have been limited to Earth orbit, unable to advance the scientific frontier beyond the immediate environs of our own planet. If we could somehow figure out a way to equip a CubeSat with a powerful high-gain antenna, vast new opportunities for research and exploration would open up. Earth-orbiting CubeSats could finally start doing radar-based science, such as measuring wind and precipitation. And with high-data-rate antennas, CubeSats could venture out and explore the solar system.Īfter a couple of years of dedicated effort, the antenna team at JPL finally solved the problem-and in two different ways.
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