Principal Investigator David Miller
Project Start Date May 2011
Project End Date April 2012
The primary objective of the MotherCube, also called Distributed Satellite System (DSS), payload is to identify the locations of radio sources by using three formation-flying satellites with receiver antennas to triangulate its position. On this mission, the radio sources will be VHF sources located on Earth. In addition, the mission aims to demonstrate the on-orbit behavior of electrospray thrusters and satellite formation flight. The thrust from electrospray thrusters is produced by electrostatic acceleration of microscopic charged droplets, providing high specific impulse, precision control, scalability, and simple plumbing. Satellite formation provides the advantages of flexibility in reconfiguration, robustness, and cost-effectiveness and stands as an important technology needed for next-generation space telescopes. Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS) algorithms are used to control the satellites attitudes and positions, maintaining desired formation configurations. Each satellite in the system is a 3U CubeSat consisting of electrospray thrusters, solar panels, GPS antenna, patch antenna, payload antenna, omni-directional antenna, IMU, and magnetic torque coils.