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Bob TwiggsCo-inventor of the CubeSat

A Short History of Space

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The Beginning

The first pioneers of the space program were early astronomers.

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Modern Space DevelopmentWWIINear the end of World War II Germany developed a rocket called the V-2. The V-2 could travel 200 to 225 miles, reaching an altitude of 52-60 miles, and carry one ton of explosives. The V-2 was designed to be used against Great Britain. Hitler thought launching V-2 rockets into Great Britain would break the will of the English people. The building of these rockets was done at island of Peenemunde in northern Germany. These V-2 rockets are the basis for the launch rockets that we have today.

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V-2 Rockets

• As many as 12,000 slave labor workers died building the V-2.

• An estimated 9,000 individuals were killed by V-2 rockets. • Those killed with these V-2 rockets was far less than the

slaves that died making them.

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After WWIIAt the end of World War II, both the U.S. and Russia were anxious to use the rocket builders to help with rocket research in their home countries. Seven rocket scientists headed by the chief designer of the V-2, Wernher von Braun, were taken as German prisoners and brought to a rocket development center in southern New Mexico. They launched the remaining rockets and moved to Army Redstone Arsenal at Huntsville, Alabama to start development of rockets for the U.S. Army.

Referenceshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_rocket

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Cold WarAt the end of World War II, the U.S. and Russia became enemies. The U.S. dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese cities in 1945. With the U.S. having the Atomic Bomb, it gave the country a backup military advantagein wartime. The Russians detonated their first Atomic Bomb in August, 1949. The U.S. and Russia entered a nuclear standoff called the Cold War.

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Rockets

Viking Rockets

The navy had a scientific program and flew some experiments on some of the early army rockets. The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington DC then started a rocket program of their own in 1946. The NRL was authorized to develop the Viking rocket.

Redstone Rockets

The army with Wernher von Braun at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville developed and tested Redstone rocket. Its main use was as a ballistic missile to carry nuclear warheads in time of war.

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Spying

• To understand the strength of the Russian military preparedness, President Eisenhower authorized U.S. U2 spy planes to fly over Russia take images of their military and rocket bases.

• The Russians did not want any spy planes flying over their country taking pictures; they tried many times to use rockets to shoot down the U2 spy planes.

A picture taken by a U2 spy plane of a Russian airfield

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Improved Missiles

On May 1, 1960, the Russians got a better surface-to-air missile and shot down a U.S. U2 spy plane. The pilot, Francis Gary Powers, survived the crash and was captured. Powers was sentenced to 10 years in a Russian prison, but was released on February 10, 1962.

Francis Gary Powers,captured U.S. Spy plane pilot.

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SR-71 Spy Plane

SR-71 Blackbird

• After the U2, the U.S. developed the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane which could fly higher and faster to avoid Russian surface-to-air missiles.

• The SR-71 flew from 1964-1998 and still holds the records for the fastest and highest sustained flying aircraft. It was never shot down by any Russian surface-to-air missile.

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The First Satellite

The Russians launched the first artificial satellite on October 4, 1957. It was a 58 cm (23 in) diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennas. This 184-pound satellite broadcast a radio signal that licensed radio operators (hams) around the world could hear with their homemade radios. The Russians used the amateur radio frequency because they knew these hams were always using their radios to talk to one another over long distances and would be able to listen to signals from Sputnik.

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SputnikThe Russians had beat the U.S. to be the first to launch a satellite. The size and weight of Sputnik demonstrated the Russians could launch a nuclear warhead from a Russian-controlled country into a sub-orbital flight and reach U.S. cities. Sputnik was more than a propaganda gesture from Moscow; its launch vehicle, known as the R-7, was capable of carrying nuclear warheads. The Cold War had reached a new level.With Sputnik, Russians were sending a message to the American people that they could send a nuclear weapon by rocket to the U.S..The sound of Sputnik. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-bQEiklsK8

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A Space Race

• Now there was another race between Russia and America, the Space Race. President Eisenhower needed to show Americans and Russians the U.S. could also launch a satellite.

• Even though it was known that the Army Redstone was a better rocket, Eisenhower gave the first American satellite launch to the NRL Viking rocket. Eisenhower used the Navy science program rocket to avoid making the launch a militarist front from an Army rocket.

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NRL Viking Rocket

Launching the First U.S. SatelliteThe first American satellite was much smaller than Sputnik at 6 inches in diameter and weighing just 1.4 kg (3 lbs). The satellite, Vanguard 1, was described by then-Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev as, "The grapefruit satellite.“ On December 6, 1957, a Viking rocket was prepared for launch with Vanguard 1 satellite stored under the shroud on top of the Rocket.The rocket failed to lift off the launch pad and exploded. With the explosion, the little Vanguard 1 satellite was ejected from the top of the rocket and rolled on the ground. U.S. newspapers declared it a “Flopnik.”

The surviving Vanguard 1 satellite inthe Smithsonian Museum

16Redstone Rocket Explorer 1 Satellite

Second Chance• When rival NRL rocket was selected for the first satellite launch von Braun and some

of his associates secretly built a satellite, Explorer 1, with the help of the Jet Propulsion Lab that was part of the California Technical Institute in southern California. When the first Viking rocket failed, von Braun was authorized to prepare the Redstone rocket to launch a satellite. Von Braun’s satellite and rocket were prepared for launch on January 31, 1958.

• The Redstone successfully put the satellite payload in an 354 kilometers (220 miles) orbit. It was the first spacecraft to detect the Van Allen radiation belt, returning data until the batteries were exhausted after nearly four months.

• With the Russians launching the first satellite, President Eisenhower leveraged the situation to build a spy satellite to replace spy planes.

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Using Satellites for Spying

• After the successful launch of the first U.S. satellite, President Eisenhower authorized the Lockheed company to build and launch spy satellites. The secret spy satellite program was named Corona.

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The Corona spy satellite Catching a Corona canister

Getting Photographic Film from a Satellite

The Corona satellite used photographic film to capture the spy pictures which presented a unique challenge: How to recover the film take by the satellite?After the camera had taken the spy pictures, the film was electronically rolled into a canister. The canister was then ejected from the satellite where it would reenter earth’s atmosphere and deploy a parachute. The Air Force would track the reentering canister and send an airplane. Before reaching the surface of the earth, an airplane with a special hook would retrieve the canister.

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The Corona Program• The Corona program ran from June 1959 to May 1972. • 144 Corona satellites were launched resulting in 102 number

canisters retrieved.• The program was believed to have cost $4 billion in adjusted fiscal

year 1995 dollars. • The value of the satellite space program was demonstrated from

the first mission.

Corona satellite images

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Other Returns From Early Satellite Programs

• Early satellites were small because the rockets were limited in the mass that they could put into orbit. As the rockets became more powerful the size, weight, and cost of the satellites grew.

• The NASA Saturn V, the largest rocket built by the U.S., and the space shuttle are examples of very large rockets launching large, expensive satellites.

• In 1960, President Kennedy challenged the American people and the space community to send men to and return them safely from the moon before the end of the decade.

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GAS Cans

• Gilbert Moore, engineers at Morton Thiokol, faculty at Utah State University (USU), and NASA developed the Get-Away Special (GAS) Canister for experiments that would go into space for short periods on the space shuttle.

• The experimental container was the size of a typical home garbage can and was attached to the side wall in the shuttle bay.

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Another Use for GAS Canisters

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in Salt lake City, Utah needed to solve a problem with airplane tracking radar systems. The radar had a fan-like beam that detected incoming airplanes. If the radar elevation was too high or low airplanes might be missed by the beam. The FAA needed to adjust the elevation angle of these rotating radar antennas so all airplanes approaching the airports could be seen. The solution was a new concept developed by Charles Bonsal. Mr. Bonsal, having seen the television program on the NASA GAS program, envisioned launching a small satellite from the canister. Why not use a satellite that could send a signal as it orbited over the radar that would determine the beam pattern and allow the adjustment for the optimum elevation angle? He contacted Gilbert Moore at Morton Thiokol and asked it he would he would help organize a student project to build the satellite and get it launched into orbit with the NASA space shuttle.

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NUSat

• In 1982, Gilbert Moore and Charlie Bonsal convinced local engineers, faculty, and students at a local college to take on their satellite project, the Northern Utah Satellite (NUSat).

• The NUSat team endeavored to build a satellite that could: provide a signal for airport radar, fit in a GAS canister, be ejected from a shuttle in orbit, and be controlled by signals when orbiting over the FAA radars.

• NUSat-1 was deployed from the Challenger space shuttle in March 1985. The satellite operated for 20 months then reentered the atmosphere over the Indian ocean.

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What do you do once you have built a successful satellite?Do it again! Students at Weber State College built the WeberSat microsatellite. WeberSat was launched on an Ariane IV in January 1990 and was still operating in 1997.

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Next Step, the Picosatellite

• The microsatellite concept was developed to explore developing and launching picosatellites, which weigh 1 kg or less.

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OPAL

A student satellite program was started in 1994 at Stanford University building microsatellites. The first satellite, named OPAL, was launched in January 2000 on the Minotaur rocket. This microsatellite started the concept of picosatellites.

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Microsatellite Project Problems

• The spacecraft developments of the NUSat, WeberSat, OPAL and others had three major problems:1. The programs took several years to complete –

not allowing students to have the full mission cycle experience.

2. The cost of launch for these microsatellites was only available to programs that had applications where the launch cost was subsidized.

3. Launch provider reluctance to launch student-built satellites as secondary payloads.

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Picosatellite Launch Solutions

• Lessons learned from the OPAL launch:1. Reduce the size and weight of the student-built

satellite so that it was insignificant to the weight of the primary satellite on the launch vehicle.

2. Provide a deployer for small satellites that did not present a debris problem as a secondary payload to the primary payload.

3. Provide a means of aggregating many student satellites with an integrator so that the launch provider would only deal with experienced integrator.

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Picosatellite Dimension Solution

• After the experience with OPAL the picosatellites were a practical size but did not allow solar cell exposure on all sides for a free an attitude destabilized design.

– Solution= Cube– Model = A beanie baby box

Put solar cells on all six sides. Add 4 ¼” solid cubes on ends to protect solar panels in deployer

Picosatellite StandardThe original CubeSat physical standard.

Picosatellite Deployer SolutionThe OPAL deployer served as an example of a multiple picosatellite deployer.

A CubeSat DeployerFor the cube, the cube deployer was designed by Cal Poly students.

Student SatellitesThe CubeSat deployer has evolved into may configurations for launching many satellites.