ĐTÜ- pSAT I: Istanbul Technical University Student

Pico-Satellite Program
Can Kurtuluş1, Taşkın Baltacı, Murat Ulusoy, B. Tayfun Aydın, Bülent Tutkun
Gökhan Đnalhan2, N.L. Okşan Çetiner-Yıldırım, Turgut Berat Karyot, Cuma Yarım, Fırat Oğuz Edis, Cingiz Hacıyev,
A. Rüstem Aslan3, M. Fevzi Ünal

Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Istanbul, Turkey

Abstract- ĐTÜ- pSAT I is the first student designed pico- weight norms, ĐTÜ-pSAT I will carry two in-house developed
satellite of Turkey to be launched in 2008 as a part of the experimental payloads. The first is a low-resolution camera and
international CubeSat program. It carries two an image compression scheme for continent-scale earth-image
experimental payloads; a low-resolution camera with on- capturing. The second is a two-axis passive stabilization
board image pre-processing, and passive magnetic experiment with a magnetic rod and the associated
stabilization with a magnetic rod accompanied by a sensor instrumentation board.
board to examine its performance. This paper discusses the ĐTÜ-pSAT I’s on-going
The design philosophy of pSAT I aims for a reliable and development process and the design philosophy, starting with
simple bus that is also expandable. In this work, we give an the base CubeSat concept and all the way leading to the
overview of the on-going Engineering Model development, assembly of the first engineering prototype model. In addition,
provide insight to the satellite’s subsystems and introduce it summarizes the positive effects of the international
the recently established Space Systems Development and collaborative environment of the CubeSat program and the
Testing Laboratory. engineering teamwork experience at a student level. As such, a
student-run ground station is being built in Đ.T.Ü. as a part of
I. INTRODUCTION the global University Ground Station Network (GSN). This
ĐTÜ-pSAT I is the first student-designed picosat of Turkey, station will allow control, command and data-download service
aimed at giving the students a unique opportunity to develop for not only ĐTÜ-pSAT I, but also for other nano-satellites,
hands-on experience across all the development and operation allowing rapid information sharing across the university and
stages of a satellite. Designed within the CubeSat size and research network.
One key institutional aspect of this program is the concurrent
development of the Space Systems Development and Testing
Corresponding authors : Laboratory (SSDTL) at the Aeronautics and Astronautics
1
Graduate Student, kurtulusca@[Link] Faculty of Đ.T.Ü. With the Class 1000 clean room and 350 liter
2
Asst. Prof., inalhan@[Link] thermal vacuum chamber going into full operation by the end
3
Prof., aslanr@[Link] (PI)
of Spring 2007, Đ.T.Ü. SSDTL and, the existing Đ.T.Ü. infrastructure is the Space Systems Development and Testing
EMC/EMI and Vibration Test Facilities, are envisioned to Laboratory (SSDTL) in which thermal vacuum tests and
provide researchers, students and small business initiatives integration will be carried out. The last segment of the project,
from all around the world, the in-house capability to rapidly includes the completion of the ground station. The operational
assemble and test science payloads, and nano-micro satellites. ability of the station in the amateur band and within the GSN
The first satellite from the laboratory, ĐTÜ-pSAT I, is (Ground Station Network) will allow joint access and remote
scheduled to be launched in 2008 as a part of the international use to many of the other CubeSat developers.
CubeSat piggy-back launch. The compact summary of development timeline for the
program is outlined in such a way that test & integration and
A. CubeSat Program
the ground station segments don’t create a handicap for the
The CubeSat program was jointly developed by California satellite segment. This situation can be observed from the Fig.
Polytechnic State University and Stanford University [1]. The 2. Necessary infrastructure is being completed as the
program aims to provide low cost launch opportunities to preliminary design phase for the satellite continues. After the
universities, allowing them to concentrate on the completion of the infrastructure, the development and
development/mission itself rather than the launch process. production phases of the flight module of the spacecraft will
More than 60 universities worldwide are participating in this follow.
program [9]. References [2-7] can be consulted for example
missions.
Satellites developed under this program are usually launched
as secondary payloads on decommissioned Russian
intercontinental ballistic missiles used as launch vehicles now.
As such the orbit of the satellites is determined by the primary
payload’s orbit, which is usually a sun-synchronous one at 500
to 700 km altitude for Earth observation. There are various
design constraints for CubeSats. Two most important ones are
that the satellite developed should not exceed 1 kg. of mass and Fig. 2. Timeline of the Istanbul Technical University student pico-satellite
program
be larger than a 10 cm on each side for a single cube option. It
is possible to expand the satellite to a triple cube option which II. Đ.T.Ü.-pSAT I
have 3 kg of mass and 10 by 10 by 30 cm dimension
This section discusses the ĐTÜ-pSAT I’s on-going
constraints accordingly.
development process and the design philosophy. The main idea
The educational benefits of the program are invaluable.
behind ĐTÜ-pSAT I’s design process is taking a low risk
Students get hands on experience on spacecraft development
approach while highlighting a simple satellite design that will
and many payloads can be flown for operational tests in space.
form an expandable pico satellite bus for future concepts.
All the experience gained is shared among the universities in
Moreover, when previous launches are considered, the number
the CubeSat project providing a global resource pool for
of fully successful missions is low; which emphasizes that
university aerospace community.
reliability should be a priority. 25 CubeSats have been
launched until now. Including a launch failure with 14
CubeSats on-board, initial contact has been established with
only 7 of them, with 5 remaining operational after the initial
phase [9]. Therefore the most vital systems are chosen from
components that have either flown before or demonstrate a
strong reliability potential. There’s also an on-going effort to
develop in-house components to the maturity and confidence
level of substitutes to these vital systems.
The bus should provide maximum space and resources to the
payload. With such an expandable system, new missions will
merely require new payload design which will in turn lead to a
Fig. 1. Project realm concentration on more complicated payloads.
B. Project Realm A. Preliminary Launch Design
Istanbul Technical University Student Pico-Satellite Program
realm includes three main segments, satellite, test & integration Orbit
and ground station. This is illustrated in Fig. 1. ĐTÜ-pSAT I is projected to have a sun synchronous orbit at
Satellite segment includes the conceptual and preliminary an approximate altitude of 650 km. and with an inclination of
design, analysis and production of the satellite. Test & 98o, (note that these parameters are nominal values and depend
Integration segment includes the construction of the on the primary payload of the launch vehicle). Orbital period
infrastructure necessary for the tests and the integration of the will be about 90 minutes, of which about 30 minutes will be in
satellite sub-system components. The main element of the
eclipse. There will be 5 or 6 communication windows of 8 to Bus
13 minutes each day. An orbital simulation with ground-tracks
and communication windows can be seen in Fig. 3.
i. Structure
The structure of the satellite is provided as a part of the
CubeSat Kit by Pumpkin Inc. All design constraints that a
CubeSat should obey are implemented in the design of
CubeSat Kit structure. The material used for the main structure
is Aluminum 5052-H32, a very popular one in space owing to
its high strength to weight ratio and ease of machining [8].
Stainless steel is the other material used on the structure for the
fasteners and the Remove-Before-Flight pin. Surfaces in
contact with the P-POD are hard anodized to prevent cold
welding and the rest of the structure is plated with gold for a
faraday cage effect, protecting satellite from external electrical
fields.
Fig. 3. Đ.T.Ü.- pSAT I’s simulated ground tracks and communication windows

Operational Phases
Operational phases of the spacecraft include each step after
launch. Approximately 12 minutes after launch, P-POD
separation occurs. 15 minutes after the separation, spacecraft
will boot its systems, deploy antennas and start transmitting its
beacon signal. The next step is identification our satellite. This
phase is a challenging one because just after separation,
CubeSats will be a cluster moving together. This initial phase
of spacecraft identification and orbit checkout will last for two
weeks after launch. Once this phase is complete, the satellite
will start nominal operations to conduct its mission. The
mission phase has its own modes which are standby,
communication, imaging and finally collection of sensor
packets A and B. The content of the sensor packets can be Fig. 4. Subsystems overview
found in the software section. These modes and the transitions
are summarized in Fig. 4. The structure as shown in Fig. 5 is an excellent solution for
small satellite teams because more man-hours can be spent on
other systems rather than designing a structure from the
beginning which is not a very challenging process in satellite
design.

Fig. 4. Operational modes Fig. 5. Structure

B. Đ.T.Ü.-pSAT I Subsystems ii. Power

Most vital subsystems of ĐTÜ-pSAT I, as shown in Fig. 4, Our power system, which consists of solar cells, a regulator
are COTS components which are chosen for reliability. We board and associated batteries, is a COTS component tailored
review the satellite’s bus in detail: for our usage. It features a PC/104 form factor and thus will
integrate seamlessly with the rest of our satellite. The system
has maximum power point tracking as well as a 3.3V, a 5V and
an unregulated battery bus. The batteries are protected by low
voltage protection which cuts the power to the buses if the
voltage drops below a pre-determined level to save the battery
from failing. Over-current protection on the buses is another
safety factor. The batteries are extensively tested and matched
for consistent performance. They also include a heater to
guarantee staying within the temperature bounds set by the
manufacturers for good performance. Another nice aspect of
the system is the ability to charge from a USB connection if
there’s the need of testing the system without connecting the
solar panels.
The telemetry we can obtain from the power system includes
solar array voltage, temperature and current; battery voltage,
temperature and current; and bus currents. This telemetry can
be obtained from the I2C communication bus, which we
already use extensively as our system bus in the satellite.
iii. Communication
The communication subsystem is a very critical component
of every satellite and we have two systems for communication
purposes on-board.

Mhx-425
Our primary communication system is the MHX-425 Fig. 6. System architecture
transceiver from Microhard. This frequency hopping spread
spectrum radio which works in the UHF band has adjustable
hopping patterns, a high sensitivity (-115 dBm) and output iv. On-board Computer and Software
power of up to 1 W. It interfaces directly to our on-board
computer and weighs about 80 gr. The radio is able to
As the on-board computer of the satellite, FM430 flight
withstand the -40oC to +85oC temperature range.
module of Pumpkin Inc. will be used. FM430 is a compact
solution for harsh environment systems. It has an SD card
Beacon interface, one USB port and external power supply connector.
pSAT I also features a beacon for easy identification and Also an interface to MHX series radio modems from
continuous reporting of critical telemetry. Unlike the other Microhard is available on the flight module.
transceiver, it will always be on during the orbit and will be FM430 is equipped with an MSP430F1611 microcontroller.
transmitting identification and simple telemetry in CW (e.g. MSP430 is a 16-bit 8 MHz low power microcontroller from
Morse code) every two minutes. This means anyone with the Texas Instruments. It has many peripherals such as I2C, SPI,
knowledge of the orbital parameters can easily pick up our UART buses and also supports DMA. It has a flash memory of
signal. The beacon has a 100mW RF output capacity. 55KB and 10 KB of RAM. The MCU consumes 100mW of
power at most.
An RTOS named Salvo will run on the system. Salvo is also
a product of Pumpkin Inc. It is a widely used RTOS for low
power and compact systems. It supports priority based multi
tasking. Salvo’s most significant property is its very low
hardware requirements – 1 to 2 KB of ROM along with a few
hundred bytes of RAM.
Salvo uses tasks as the main sub-block in the operating
system, thus each task can encapsulate a function or feature.
The organizational aspect of the on-board software will be
divided along this abstraction accordingly.
On-board software will control all subsystems mostly from
I2C bus. Payload boards will generate useful information about
various properties such as orientation and angular velocities of
the satellite, magnetic field properties and finally the camera
will take shots of the Earth. All generated data will be stored in
the payload board and the image will also be compressed in the
payload board. But dividing all those information into
packages for transmitting to the ground station will take place x 480 pixels will be acquired. The area that each image will
in the main processor. For possible crash events, software will cover varies according to the orbital height. Therefore,
be bootable from flash memory of the microcontroller. Fault calculations are carried out by choosing a relevant orbital
recovery and error correction in software plays an important height of 700 km. considering previous launches. According to
part in the design. that height, each pixel will cover an area of 886 m. x 886 m.
An important function of the on-board software is putting Each image will cover an area of 757 km. x 567 km.
together the various telemetry packets. We have grouped the Each image will approximately take up 1 MB of memory.
packets into three; Sensor Packet A contains solar cell JPEG compression will be applied after transferring the image
temperatures, currents, on-board computer temperature, current to flash memory.
and voltage levels. Sensor Packet B contains the attitude
information obtained from payload I and the Operational
Packet contains basic health information such as the battery
voltage, the commands executed etc. The complete system
electrical and electronics architecture with the corresponding
components can be seen in Fig. 6.

Payloads

Our main aim is to first validate and examine the space

performance of the bus. If everything goes on as planned
however, a bus does not do much of a mission in space except
support a payload and provide a means of communication. We
are going to test a CMOS imager and obtain information on the
passive magnetic stability of our satellite attitude through
sensing hardware. An Inertial Measurement Unit consisting of
COTS MEMS sensors is being built to be used in conjunction Fig. 7. Breadboard implementation of the camera interface circuit
with a magnetometer to report the attitude of the satellite.
These sensors will give us an idea of the real performance of An interface board is designed to integrate camera with the
the on-board magnet which is placed to provide us with passive MSP430F1611 microcontroller. The camera operates at 5V DC
attitude stability and the viability of using COTS imagers and whereas the microcontroller operates at 3.3V DC. Because the
COTS MEMS sensors in space. In addition, as these camera and the microcontroller operate at different voltage
components gain space-heritage, this will provide us with levels, an isolated transmission line for the I2C bus should be
substantial cost savings in future missions if their performance provided between those devices. Also, camera outputs TTL
is on par with our expectations. signals which should be dropped to operational level of the
microcontroller. Image data is sent as 8/16 bit parallel data
i. Payload I therefore a shift register is used to convert parallel data to serial
to transmit image data to the microcontroller.
Payload I is our attitude sensing and passive stability
hardware. It consists of three gyros, a three-axis accelerometer Systems Engineering Analysis
both from Analog Devices in addition to a three-axis System engineering studies consist of determining mission
magnetometer from Honeywell and an AlNiCo magnet. The modes, link, mass, power and data budgets. The results of these
magnetometer will help counter the inherent bias and drifts of studies are provided as tables with further explanation after
inertial sensors and provide measurement updates for a filtered them.
and corrected solution of our attitude. The analog-digital
Table 1
conversion of all the sensor outputs is done by a PIC© Operational Modes of pSAT I
microprocessor which also has the task of grouping the
measurements into a packet and sending them over the I2C bus
to our on-board computer for later transmission down to the
ground.

[Link] II

The secondary payload of ĐTÜ pSAT I is a low resolution

digital CMOS camera (shown in Fig. 7.). It consumes 80mW in
full operation, supports I2C and all functions can be configured
from that bus. During the operational phase, a resolution of 640
 Modes of the satellite, once the satellite is in operation, are Fig. 8 shows current consumption over about a week. The
very important. These modes as shown in Table 1 can be spikes are when the satellite is in transmit mode. Since the on-
thought of as states the satellite’s in, which is a very useful board computer doesn’t consume a significant amount of
abstraction for power budgeting, software design and testing. power, it can be left “on” during the orbit, hence the
We can see in the power consumption table 2 below that these consumption never getting down to zero.
modes are directly linked to power consumption. We expect to
be using around 5.8 Watts for the most power intensive The link budgets as depicted in Table 4 and 5 were based on
operation phase: communication. a worst case scenario of a 800 km orbit and assuming a
transmitter operating at around 435 MHz. The link equation, as
Table 2 well as the figures of various losses can be obtained from [8]
Power Consumption and the amateur satellite link budget spreadsheet offered by Jan
King. Our data download capacity is conservatively estimated
to be 1.82 MBs per day.

Preliminary Thermal analyses (shown in Fig 9) were

conducted to get a rough estimate of the thermal stresses ĐTÜ
pSAT I should withstand. They include surface temperature
simulations, where only the secondary payload and solar panels
of the spacecraft are modeled, and inner circuitry analyses
which include various operational modes of the on-board data
handling system in cold and hot cases.
Table 3
Mass Budget
Subsystem Component Brief Explanation Mass(g) Detailed analyses will be carried out as the design and exact
Structure placement of subsystems, thus the final solid model, become
Base structure 165
Cables 5 clearer. These will include vibration analysis for the Dnepr
Fasteners 15 launch vehicle scenario and final thermal analysis with the
Payload
Payload #1 Sensor Board 80
complete spacecraft model.
Payload #2 Camera 40
Attitude Control
Table 4
Magnet 50
On-board Computer
Downlink Budget
Board 55
SD - Card 10 Downlink Budget
Communication
Spacecraft Transmitter Power Output: 1.0 Watt / 30 dBm
Transceiver 80
Antenna 20 Spacecraft Total Transmission Line Losses: 1.9 dB
Power Spacecraft Antenna Gain: 2.2 dBi
Solar Panels 25g x 6 150 Spacecraft Antenna Pointing Loss: 0.3 dB
Power System Board Battery + circuit board 150 S/C-to-Ground Antenna Polarization Loss: 0.2 dB
Path Loss: 143.3 dB
Total Mass 820 Atmospheric Loss: 1.1 dB
Ionospheric Loss: 0.4 dB
pSAT I’s mass is estimated to be around 820g. Table 3 Ground Station Antenna Pointing Loss: 0.7 dB
Ground Station Antenna Gain: 18.95 dBi
provides the detailed lists the components of the satellite and Ground Station Total Transmission Line Losses: 5.1 dB
the break-down of the mass budget. Link Margin 13.15 dB

Table 5
Uplink Budget

Uplink Budget
Ground Station Transmitter Power Output: 75 Watt / 49 dBm
Ground Stn. Total Transmission Line Losses: 5.1 dB
Antenna Gain: 18.95 dBi
Ground Station Antenna Pointing Loss: 1.2 dB
Gnd-to-S/C Antenna Polarization Losses: 0.2 dB
Path Loss: 143.3 dB
Atmospheric Losses: 1.1 dB
Ionospheric Losses: 0.4 dB
Spacecraft Antenna Pointing Loss: 0.3 dB
Spacecraft Antenna Gain: 2.2 dBi
Spacecraft Total Transmission Line Losses: 2.0 dB
Link Margin 31.55 dB
Fig. 8. Current consumption over time
 Fig. 11. The first thermal vacuum chamber test with test volume and plate
Fig. 9. Preliminary thermal analysis result

A. Clean Room and, Thermal-Vacuum Chamber

III. Đ.T.Ü. SSDTL The thermal-vacuum chamber opens into the clean room
One key institutional aspect of this program is the concurrent enabling an integrated manufacture and test process. The flight
development of the Space Systems Development and Testing models of pSAT I and future projects will all be assembled and
Laboratory (SSDTL) at the Aeronautics and Astronautics manufactured in the clean room and tested without leaving the
Faculty of Đ.T.Ü. with pSAT I. clean environment which will avoid contamination. An
intermediate dressing place with an air-shower is available for
controlled entry into the clean room. Thermal vacuum
chamber (shown in Fig. 11 during its first tests) is able to
provide a 10-6 torr pressure environment with a thermal range
of -60 oC – 90 oC at 1oC / min steps.

B. Ground Station

The ground station will consist of mostly COTS components

widely used by universities and amateur radio operators around
the world for satellite communication. It’s a typical setup with
a rotator for azimuth-elevation tracking of satellites and an
ICOM 910-H radio with the only major difference being the
Microhard radio. One of the two computers in the setup will be
used to track the satellite and the other is for command, control
and data storage purposes. The ground station as shown in Fig.
Fig. 10. Thermal vacuum chamber and the clean room in construction phase 12 is projected to be completed by the end of Summer 2007.

SSDTL currently houses a class 1000 clean room and a 350

liter thermal vacuum chamber (Fig. 10). The clean room covers
a 25m2 area with access to the thermal vacuum chamber. We
expect the clean-room to be fully operational by the end of
Spring 2007. In addition to these local capabilities, various
facilities in Đ.T.Ü are also available to the use of SSDTL. Such
facilities include an EMI/EMC room and a shake table.

A ground station, which is to be run by students, is also

under development. With that station, Đ.T.Ü. will be a part of
the global University Ground Station Network (GSN). This
station will allow control, command and data-downlink service
for not only ĐTÜ-pSAT I, but also for other university nano-
Fig. 12. Ground station diagram
satellites, allowing rapid information dissemination across the
university and research network.
C. Outlook of SSDTL ACKNOWLEDGMENT

As stated before, Đ.T.Ü. SSDTL aims to provide students and We would like to thank TUBITAK (The Scientific and
researchers with the necessary testing facilities and experience Technological Council of Turkey) for supporting the
to assemble, test and space-qualify their sub-systems, payloads development of the Đ.T.Ü. pSAT I. [Design and Manufacture
or complete nano – micro satellites. The experience gained of a Pico-Satellite; Grant no: 106M082] . Acknowledgements
from Đ.T.Ü. pSAT I will be disseminated across the to the ever-increasing number of new graduate (Đlke Akbulut,
international CubeSat group and be used to train future Özgür Salmanoğlu, Onur Ereren, Murat Bronz) and
engineers locally. A website (shown in Fig. 13) has been set-up undergraduate students (Halil Ersin Söken, Đklim Gençtürk,
to provide the CubeSat community with news from our lab and Barış Toktamış) for their on-going effort in the pSAT I
projects as well as to share the lessons we’ll learn during the development.
assembly and testing stages of our satellite. It can be reached at
[Link]
REFERENCES
[1] Puig-Suari J. ,Turner C., Twiggs R.J., “CubeSat: The Development and
Launch Support Infrastructure for Eighteen Different Satellite Customers
on One Launch,” 15th Annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites,
Utah, SSC01-VIIIb-5
[2] R.E. Zee, and P. Stibrany, “Canada’s First Microsatellite – An Enabling
Low-Cost Technology for Future Space Science and Technology
Missions,” Canadian Aeronautics and Space Journal, vol. 48, no. 1, pp. 1-
11, Mar. 2002.
[3] K. Nakaya, K. Konoue, H. Sawada, K. Ui, H. Okada, N. Miyashita, M.
Iai, and S. Matunga, “Tokyo Tech CubeSat: CUTE-I - Design and
development of flight model and future plan,” 21st AIAA International
Communications Satellite Systems Conference (ICSSC) and Exhibit,
Yokohama, Japan, 2003.
[4] Y. Tsuda, N. Sako, T. Eishima, T. Ito, Y. Arikawa, N. Miyamura, K.
Kanairo, S. Ukawa, S. Ogasawara, S. Ishikawa, S. Nakasuka, “University
of Tokyo's CubeSat ‘XI’ as a Student-Built Educational Pico-Satellite –
Final Design and Operation Plan”, The 23rd International Symposium of
Space Technology and Science, Matsue, Japan, 2002.
[5] Lars Alminde, Morten Bisgaard, Dennis Vinther, Tor Viscor, and Kasper
Østergaard, “Educational Value And Lessons Learned From The AAU
Cubesat project,” 1st Recent Advances in Space Technologies Conference,
Istanbul, Turkey, 2003.
Fig. 13. SSDTL Website entrance page [6] Barza,R., Y. Aoki, K. Schilling, “CubeSat UWE-1 – technology tests and
in orbit results,” 57th International Astronautical Congress, Valencia,
2006, IAC-06-B5.3.07.
One of the educational goals of the lab is to support the [7] Eide,E.,Ilstad, J., “NCUBE-1, the first Norwegian CUBESAT student
senior year aerospace engineering course: Spacecraft Systems satellite,” 16th ESA Symposium on European Rocket and Balloon
Design. This course is now able to provide students with hands Programmes and Related Research, 2003, Sankt Gallen, Switzerland.
[8] Larson, W.J., Wertz, J.R., “Space Mission Analysis and Design,” 3rd ed.,
on experience in spacecraft design, assembly and test. Efforts Microcosm, El Segundo, 1998.
are underway both as a part of the course and outside of it, to [9] Thomsen, M. , “Michael’s List of Cubesat Satellite Missions”,
develop the next generation pico-satellite bus of Istanbul [Link]
Technical University. The new bus will include a structure, an
on-board computer and a transceiver designed in-house to
support future payloads. This year’s class has finished a
conceptual nano-satellite design and will be prototyping it for
desktop proof-of-concept validation. Their final report will be
accessible form the web address stated above.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
The first student-designed picosat of Turkey, Đ.T.Ü. pSAT I
has been providing Đ.T.Ü. students a unique opportunity to
develop hands-on experience across all the development and
operation stages of a satellite. In addition, it has sparked an
institutional step towards the development of a Spacecraft
Systems Design and Testing Laboratory and ground-station.
The first satellite from the laboratory, ĐTÜ-pSAT I, is
scheduled to be launched in 2008 as a part of the international
CubeSat piggy-back launch.