Flight heritage and cases

SPARC 6U Platform

SPARC is ÅAC Microtecs 6U Cubesat platform. The design is based on the SPARC-1 satellite developed under primeship of ÅAC Microtec for the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) and the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) under a US-Swedish bilateral agreement.

SPARC is a CSD compliant, 6U 30 W Average Orbit Power (AOP) three-axis attitude controlled spacecraft bus, with an S-band software defined radio (SDR) capable of 1 Mbps download rate and a fully integrated attitude and orbit control system (ACS) enabling attitude control better the 1 degrees and 0.1 degrees point knowledge accuracy to the bus.

A GPS sensor interfaced directly with the ACS enables precise orbit navigation for supporting Earth frame referenced attitude control and time reference. The CCSDS standard is utilized, a key to commercial ground station networks. The DHS processor cores is an OpenRisc fault-tolerant processors, a computer unit with embedded Spacewire routers with two external SpaceWire ports on each computer module, enabling both redundant, and daisychain network topologies. The flight software application runs on RTEMS real time operating system.

Diwata-1

ÅAC Microtec has supplied a key avionics component for the new Philippine microsatellite Diwata-1, which was launched from Kennedy Space Center to the International Space Station (ISS) on March 23 and successfully deployed into orbit on April 27.

Diwata-1 is a 50 kg microsatellite and it uses one of ÅAC’s fault-tolerant mass memory products. The new satellite will be used for environmental resource monitoring and meteorological applications, among other things.

RACE

RACE (Radiometer Atmospheric Cubesat Experiment) was a technology demonstration nanosatellite mission of NASA/JPL and UTA (University of Texas, Austin). The ÅAC product nanoRTU was the interface computer (RTU) to the microwave radiometer payload that primarily observes the 183 GHz water vapor line.

The spacecraft was launched towards the International Space Station on Oct. 28th, 2014, from Wallops Island, Virginia. The satellite was aboard the unmanned Antares rocket, along with other cargo for a resupply mission to the space station. Just seconds after liftoff, the rocket exploded, destroying the RACE satellite along with various other research projects and experiments.

DX1

ÅAC provided the main on-board computer to the DX1 satellite. Dauria is very happy with the performance and reliability of the OBClite.

RISING-2

ÅAC provided an IMU payload, which included customized avionics together with our standard products OBClite and nanoRTU.

TechEdSat-3p

NASA reused the main power distribution board from the TechEdSat-1 satellite. The satellite tested an exo-brake a passive deorbiting mechanism.

TechEdSat-1

ÅAC provided all avionics to the satellite, including the ÅAC products and the Iridium & Orbcomm modems. It was a collaboration with NASA, and the nanoViking project’s goals were to build a nano-satellite in short time (6 months).

Rubin-9.2

ÅAC provided the INOVATOR payload, which purpose was to test and qualify nano technologies from ÅAC. Two miniaturized RTU100-CS computers, one miniaturized mass memory that ÅAC and Ruag jointly developed, and one IMU was flown. The satellite was integrated by OHB.

RISING-1 (Sprite Sat)

ÅAC flew its avionics as a payload onboard the RISING-1 satellite. Tohoku Univerity in Japan built the satellite.

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