CubeSat Subsystems
We're building all of OreSat from scratch. For the record, this is a terrible idea. There are plenty of amazing commercial-off-the-shelf CubeSat kits and components out there. But they're not open source, they're a tad bit expensive, and we're an educational group that likes to DIY it anyway. Here are our subsystems: fly them as is, use them as a reference design, or hack them up to make them better! We look forward to seeing what you do with the OreSat bus.
OreSat bus subsystems
1U, 2U, and 3U Structures
The OreSat bus system uses 4 anodized Aluminum frames bolted together to make a robust, lightweight, and vaguely inexpensive CubeSat structure that can be scaled from 1U to 3U. OreSat structure is compliant to the CubeSat Developer's Specification v13 and later.
STATUS: 1U ready to fly, 2U built but needs revision, 3U is CAD only.
Source: oresat-structure
Solar modules
Each 1U face of the OreSat structure can have a single solar module. That's 4 boards for a 1U, and up to 12 for a 3U. Each module has two 30% efficient GaAs solar cells, a built-in custom maximum power point tracker, and full telemetry. We get about 2 watts/module in full sun.
STATUS: v5 working, including MPPT. Needs test with cells, and minor revisions.
Source: oresat-solar
Battery Cards
Each battery card has two independent battery packs on it. Each pack is 2 Lithium Ion 18650 cells in series, so a card gives us a capacity of 7.2 V (nominal) at 5.2 Ah = 37 Wh. Our battery cards also have fuel gauging, current and voltage monitoring, and carry the inhibit and battery disconnect switches.
Status: Working, needs firmware + BOM revision.
Source: oresat-batteries
C3 onboard computer
ARM Cortex M4 on board computer, 16 GB eMMC memory, rad hard watchdog timer, deployment circuits, UHF transceiver radio, L band receiver, and OreSat Power Domain controller... all on one board.
Status: Working, needs revision for flight.
Source: oresat-c3
Data, Power, and RF
Backplane
The backplane connects all of the OreSat cards together with power, data, and RF signals. The backplane is located on the inner wall of the -X side of the structure.
Status: Ready for flight!
Source: oresat-backplane
Deployable tri-band turnstile antenna
The turnstile antenna is a four-element antenna that provides low gain, omnidirectional connectivity to the ground. The antenna has three bands: L band (1.2 GHz) for uplink to the satellite, UHF (436 MHz) for uplink and downlink, and S band (2.4 GHz) as a backup to a highly directional S band antenna (like the helical one, below).
Status: Prototyping
Source: oresat-antennas
+/- Z End Caps
The End Caps are boards that fit on the very outer surface of the + Z and - Z sides of the satellite (top and bottom). They protect the end cards, and usually have the magnetometers on them.
Status: Ready for flight!
Source: oresat-endcaps
+/- Z End Cards
The End Cards are the top and bottom most card slots. They're important, and different, because they hold any deployable antennas and connect both the the solar modules and the end caps to the backplane.
Status: Working 1U +Z
Source: oresat-end-cards
Attitude Determination System (ADS)
Star Tracker
This card has a ON Semi AR0134 camera that takes images of stars. The unique pattern of the stars let us figure out which way the satellite is pointing, using the openstartracker star tracking software.
Status: Ready for flight!
Source: oresat-star-tracker and oresat-star-tracker-software
Magnetometers
The magnetomers measure the Earth's magnetic field. If we know where OreSat is, we can tell which way it's pointing. 2x Memsic HMC3883A magnetometers are on each End Cap, and they're read by the uC on the ACS Card.
Status: Built, awaiting firmware
Source: oresat-acs-board
IMU
The Inertial Measurement Unit is a Bosch BMM180 that has 3 accelerometers and 3 gyroscopes to measure the satellite's movement. In orbit, the accelerometers just measure zero (!); we just use the gyroscopes to measure our spin rate. The IMU is on the ACS Card.
Status: Built, awaiting firmware
Source: oresat-acs-board
SDR GPS
Our software defined radio GPS receiver is a space-based GPS receiver based on collecting raw IQ data from the Maxim MAX2771 SDR GPS IC.
Status: Breadboard prototypes only
Source: oresat-gps-hardware and oresat-gps-software
Attitude Control System (ACS)
Reaction Wheels
We use 4 reaction wheels to precisely control which way OreSat is pointed. We have 4 custom boards that control each of the motors.
Status: Prototyped, awaiting firmware
Source: oresat-acs-board
Magnetorquers
We can point OreSat by pushing against the Earth's magnetic field using our 3 magnetorquers.
Status: Prototyped
Source: oresat-acs-board
OreSat Live mission
Helical antenna
The helical or high gain antenna is the spiral, single-pronged antenna on the +Z face of the satellite. It's the narrow-beam, high-data-rate antenna the satellite uses for transmitting video.
Status: Prototypes only
Source: oresat-antennas
DxWiFi
This is our long distance WiFi system: a Atheros AR9271 IC along with a Qorvo power amp.
Status: Breadboard prototypes only
Source: oresat-dxwifi-hardware and oresat-dxwifi-software
OreSat Live Camera + Lens
We use a schmidt-Cassegrain "lens" along with a high resolution USB camera to capture high resolution images of you!
Status: CAD and breadboard prototypes only
Source: oresat-structure
Cirrus Flux Cam mission
SWIR Camera
We use multi-angle shots from a short wave infrared camera to map cirrus clouds.
Status: CAD only
Source: oresat-structure
CFC Card
This card controls the CFC camera and cooler.
Status: Block diagram only
Source: oresat-cfc-hardware
Image Processing
We use multi-angle shots from a short wave infrared camera to map cirrus clouds.
Status: Discussions and prototypes only
Source: TBD
Distributed Computational Resources
Microcontrollers
ST STM32F091 (Cortex M0)
We have a dozen or so small microcontrollers around OreSat that run ChibiOS, communicate using the CAN bus, and do all of the small housekeeping and telemetry tasks you'd expect. Some of the more demanding subsystems, like the C3 card, use a Cortex M4 microcontroller.
Status: See subsystems
Source: oresat-proto-card
Cortex M Firmware:
ChibiOS + C
We use the ChibiOS NIL real time operating system (RTOS) on our Cortex M microcontrollers, and use C to write our firmware. All with open source tools, of course!
Status: See subsystems
Source: oresat-firmware
Processors
Octavo OSD335x-SM
(Cortex A8)
We have a few large processors running Linux that do the heavy lifting, including image processing. These are the same processors used on the PocketBeagle open source single board computer.
Status: See subsytems
Source: oresat-star-tracker
Linux in Space
We run Debian Linux on our Cortex A8 processors!
Status: See subsystems
Source: oresat-linux