This rendering shows what multiple CubeSats could look like in space | Photo credit: nasa.gov, St. George News
St. George — The Utah Institute of Technology has been awarded a small grant from NASA to develop a CubeSat aimed at helping manage water resources in Utah. The project will begin on May 18 and run through May 17, 2025.
CubeSats are small satellites developed by California Institute of Technology and Stanford University in the early 2000s with the goal of giving college students the opportunity to gain experience in space engineering.
This year's CubeSat is a desalination project in partnership with the Utah Department of Water Resources and Water Conservancy District.
If successful, the second phase would involve finding a launch vehicle and launching the device into space the following year. Dr. Monte Kennedy, a retired aerospace engineer with 45 years of experience in the field and an adjunct professor at the Utah Institute of Technology, told St. George News that he led the proposal to NASA.
Kennedy and Utah Tech Dean of Engineering Dr. Dave Christensen will instruct six to nine senior engineering capstone students, along with local high school students who will serve as interns, in designing, building and testing the CubeSat subsystems.
“As part of our proposal to NASA, we said we would reach out to high schools to get them involved,” Kennedy said, adding that NASA wants to open up a path to science for students early in the process.
Construction of the CubeSat, called the UTU Harbinger CubeSat for the Utah Water Management Mission, was made possible by an $11,000 grant from NASA, with an additional $5,500 in matching funds.
“We weren't sure we'd get the funding,” Kennedy says. “No one had ever built a CubeSat for $11,000 before, so the odds of our proposal being approved were pretty low.”
Each CubeSat is 10 centimeters cubed and can be stacked three times, with each unit measuring 10 centimeters by 30 centimeters, Kennedy said. The CubeSats will carry sensor payloads including thermal infrared and optical cameras.
Data collected from orbit on water distribution and usage could potentially detect issues such as leaks and inefficiencies in water management systems. CubeSats have the ability to conduct continuous monitoring and data collection over long periods of time, allowing them to track changes in water resources and identify patterns that are not visible from the ground.
“Institutions like Utah State University, BYU and the University of Utah have all launched CubeSats into space,” Kennedy said, “and we thought it would be a great idea to get our students involved with CubeSats as well.”
By developing most of the CubeSat subsystems in-house, Utah Tech hopes to significantly reduce development time and costs to one year, compared to a typical CubeSat project, which can take two to four years and cost more than $100,000.
Kennedy said the team hopes to work with a different group of students each year to build and launch a CubeSat.
“It will take time initially, but once we go through the process, we believe we can do it every year,” he said, adding that he is optimistic about the project's progress and future.
$11,000 is allocated to materials and tooling costs for the CubeSat subsystems. Major components include the structure, power system, communications system, command and data processing, attitude determination and control, thermal control, on-board data storage, and science payloads.
The budget breakdown is as follows:
- Structure: $500
- Power: $1,000
- Communications: $500
- Command and data processing: $2,500
- Attitude Determination and Control System: $2,500
- Heat control: $500
- On-board data storage: $500
- Payload: $3,000
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