Payam Banazadeh

The Space Rendezvous Laboratory (SLAB) at Stanford is investigating the feasibility of a miniaturized distributed occulter/telescope system (mDOT) to directly image exozodiacal dust and Jovian exoplanets. The mDOT mission relies on formation flying in Earth orbit and promises a drastic decrease of the expected mission cost compared to large scale missions, such as NWO and Exo-S (NASA). The preliminary system design of mDOT, described in this paper, is complemented by concurrent novel studies of… Show more

The Space Rendezvous Laboratory (SLAB) at Stanford is investigating the feasibility of a miniaturized distributed occulter/telescope system (mDOT) to directly image exozodiacal dust and Jovian exoplanets. The mDOT mission relies on formation flying in Earth orbit and promises a drastic decrease of the expected mission cost compared to large scale missions, such as NWO and Exo-S (NASA). The preliminary system design of mDOT, described in this paper, is complemented by concurrent novel studies of optimal formation dynamics and diffractive optics design. mDOT consists of a microsatellite carrying a 1 meter radius petal shaped occulter at a distance of 500 km from a 6U CubeSat carrying a 10 cm diameter aperture telescope designed to image at short visible and ultraviolet wavelengths. Following a systems analysis, based on the definition of mission requirements and a survey of CubeSat capabilities, the telescope spacecraft provides 160 days of operation with 50 W solar cells, 320 m/s of delta-v capability using electrospray thrusters. Together with ad-hoc relative metrology instruments, these are used for lateral alignment with the occulter spacecraft at 10 cm position control accuracy. The goal of the mDOT mission is to prove that a space telescope with an external star occulter can be miniaturized, greatly reducing the mission cost and complexity. As shown in this paper, the proposed mission has the capability to directly image the vicinity of nearby stars and, at the same time, prove that miniaturized space systems are capable of executing complex missions. mDOT can serve as a first-of-a-kind precursor, paving the way for larger missions with higher scientific return. Show less

Recently there has been an increasing demand for a rapid mission concept generation capability for CubeSats, NanoSats, and SmallSats at JPL and in the broader community in the Concept Maturity Level (CML) 2-5 range. To help address these needs, JPL’s Innovation Foundry has extended its long-standing advanced concepts concurrent engineering team, Team X, with a new, agile, and collaborative design capability called Team Xc. This concurrent team-based approach provides rapid turnaround for small… Show more

Recently there has been an increasing demand for a rapid mission concept generation capability for CubeSats, NanoSats, and SmallSats at JPL and in the broader community in the Concept Maturity Level (CML) 2-5 range. To help address these needs, JPL’s Innovation Foundry has extended its long-standing advanced concepts concurrent engineering team, Team X, with a new, agile, and collaborative design capability called Team Xc. This concurrent team-based approach provides rapid turnaround for small spacecraft mission and system early concept studies. The process is adaptable to a wide variety of CubeSat, NanoSat, and SmallSat customers and mission appli- cations. Team Xc design and analysis services include feasibility assessments, trade space exploration studies, and point design studies, commensurate with the level of maturity of the mission concept. Show less

A major open question for advocates of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is the question of how system and subsystem engineers will work together. The Systems Modeling Language (SysML), like any language intended for a large audience, is in tension between the desires for simplicity and for expressiveness. In order to be more expressive, many specialized language elements may be introduced, which will unfortunately make a complete understanding of the language a more daunting task. While… Show more

A major open question for advocates of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is the question of how system and subsystem engineers will work together. The Systems Modeling Language (SysML), like any language intended for a large audience, is in tension between the desires for simplicity and for expressiveness. In order to be more expressive, many specialized language elements may be introduced, which will unfortunately make a complete understanding of the language a more daunting task. While this may be acceptable for systems modelers, it will increase the challenge of including subsystem engineers in the modeling effort. One possible answer to this situation is the use of Domain-Specific Languages (DSL), which are fully supported by the Unified Modeling Language (UML). SysML is in fact a DSL for systems engineering. A major open question for advocates of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is the question of how system and subsystem engineers will work together. The Systems Modeling Language (SysML), like any language intended for a large audience, is in tension between the desires for simplicity and for expressiveness. In order to be more expressive, many specialized language elements may be introduced, which will unfortunately make a complete understanding of the language a more daunting task. While this may be acceptable for systems modelers, it will increase the challenge of including subsystem engineers in the modeling effort. One possible answer to this situation is the use of Domain-Specific Languages (DSL), which are fully supported by the Unified Modeling Language (UML). SysML is in fact a DSL for systems engineering. Show less

Seeking “nearby habitable worlds” was one of three science themes identified in the Astronomy Decadal Survey. Hundreds of extrasolar planets are known, but magnetic fields are likely required for these planets to be habitable. As of today, no direct constraints on the magnetic field characteristics of extrasolar planets exist. The ExtraSolar Observing Low-frequency Array of Nano Satellites for Radio Astronomy (XSOLANTRA), formerly known as XSOLARA is a feasibility study of a student designed… Show more

Seeking “nearby habitable worlds” was one of three science themes identified in the Astronomy Decadal Survey. Hundreds of extrasolar planets are known, but magnetic fields are likely required for these planets to be habitable. As of today, no direct constraints on the magnetic field characteristics of extrasolar planets exist. The ExtraSolar Observing Low-frequency Array of Nano Satellites for Radio Astronomy (XSOLANTRA), formerly known as XSOLARA is a feasibility study of a student designed, built, and tested micro-satellite mission to a Distant Retrograde Orbit (DRO) around Earth. XSOLANTRA will look at the Electron Cyclotron Maser Emission generated by the interaction between stellar wind and a planetary magnetosphere from which interior composition and atmospheric shielding can be inferred. The science instrument for XSOLANTRA is the entire array of fourteen CubeSats operating together as an interferometer. The fourteen CubeSats will be stacked on a SHuttle Expendable Rocket for Payload Augmentation (SHERPA) vehicle as a payload and will be deployed once arrived at DRO. A feasibility study was conducted to demonstrate that a CubeSat mission with cost of no more than $60 million is capable of detecting extrasolar planets. The study showed that a CubeSat mission within these constraints is possible; however, some questions still remain unanswered. This paper summarizes the mission concept starting from the science requirements, key mission design decisions, component level feasibility analysis and management and cost analysis.
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