EIRFLAT-1: A FlatSat platform for the development and testing of the 2U CubeSat EIRSAT-1

The Educational Irish Research Satellite (EIRSAT-1) is a 2U CubeSat being designed, built and tested at University College Dublin. A FlatSat platform known as EIRFLAT-1 has been constructed to enable the testing and development of the CubeSat. EIRFLAT-1 facilitates the electrical connections between CubeSat components while leaving key interfaces accessible for test equipment and allowing for the hot swapping of components. Commercial Off The Shelf and in-house developed hardware has been tested using EIRFLAT-1 at component, subsystem and full system level. In addition, the FlatSat has been used for flight software development. This paper describes the design of EIRFLAT-1 including electrical and mechanical components and additional ground support equipment developed to assist in the testing and development activities. EIRFLAT-1 has proven to be an invaluable tool for testing and has led to the discovery of issues and unexpected behaviour with flight hardware which would have contributed to schedule delays if undiscovered until after the satellite was assembled. Moreover, EIRFLAT-1 facilitated early and incremental testing of both software and operations procedures. The schematics for the electrical design of EIRFLAT-1, which is compatible with all CubeSat Kit PC/104 components, has been made publicly available for use by other educational CubeSat team

Experiences in firmware development for a CubeSat instrument payload

Recent advancements in gamma-ray detector technology have brought new opportunities to study gamma-ray bursts and other high-energy phenomena. However, there is a lack of dissemination on the development methods, tools and techniques used in the production of instrument flight firmware. This is understandable as firmware for spacecraft payloads may be proprietary or exceptionally hardware specific and so is not always published. However, this leaves a gap in the knowledge for CubeSat teams, especially those consisting of university students who may be building a custom spacecraft payload with limited initial experience. The Gamma-Ray Module (GMOD) on-board EIRSAT-1, a 2U CubeSat in the 2nd European Space Agency Fly Your Satellite! programme, is one such instrument. GMOD features a 25x25x40mm Scionix CeBr3 scintillator, coupled to an array of 16 (4x4) JSeries OnSemiconductor MicroFJ-60035-TSV silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) with readout provided by the SIPHRA IDE3380 application specific integrated circuit. The instrument is supported by the Gamma-Ray Module motherboard which controls and configures the instrument, providing regulated voltage and current sources as well as generating time tagged event packets and a temporary on-board flash storage. At the core of this system is the Texas Instruments MSP430FR5994 microcontroller. A custom firmware was produced for the instrument by the EIRSAT-1 team over numerous cycles of testing and development to reliably perform the long duration tasks of readout, storage and transfer of time tagged event data to the EIRSAT-1 on-board computer. Recognising the value of sharing our experiences and pitfalls on firmware development with the wider CubeSat community, this paper will provide an introduction to GMOD, with focus primarily on the development approach of the firmware. The development, testing, version control, essential tools and an overview of how the resources provided by the device manufacturer were used will be examined, such that the lessons learned may be extended to other payloads from student-led mission

Thermal characterization testing of a robust and reliable thermal knife HDRM (Hold Down and Release Mechanism) for CubeSat deployables

Thermal knife HDRMs (Hold Down and Release Mechanisms) are commonly used in CubeSats and other small satellites. However, detailed information on proven designs is difficult to find. Design of a robust and reliable mechanism can present technical challenges which may only become apparent during testing, and often only when tested in a space representative environment. A custom thermal knife HDRM was designed and built for the antenna deployment module of EIRSAT-1 to deploy four coil spring antenna elements, but the same or a similar design could be repurposed quite easily to release a wide range of CubeSat deployables. In this design resistors are used to cut dyneema lines. For robustness and reliability, the thermal response of the mechanism must be well understood. To reach the melting point of the dyneema (150C) the power dissipated in the resistors must often exceed the maximum rated value. Therefore, choosing the operating current and the burn time is a careful trade-off between ensuring that the resistor reliably cuts the dyneema line and ensuring that the resistor, solder joints, PCB and nearby components are not damaged by the high temperatures. These choices are further complicated by the requirement that the mechanism operates over a range of temperatures. A thermal vacuum test campaign was carried out to better understand and characterise the thermal behaviour of the EIRSAT-1 mechanism. For the test a model of the mechanism was built with several temperature sensors installed. Two of these sensors were installed directly on the body of the resistors using a thermally conductive epoxy. Burn tests were performed in vacuum at temperatures between -37C and +56C. The test shows many interesting results including the effect of the dyneema lines on the thermal response, the possibility of desoldering the burn resistors and a comparison between the performance at ambient and vacuum conditions. Finally, a summary is given of the key technical challenges associated with this type of mechanism along with some recommendations to help make future designs more robust and reliable

Update on the status of the Educational Irish Research Satellite (EIRSAT-1)

The Educational Irish Research Satellite, EIRSAT-1, is a 2U CubeSat being implemented by a student-led team at University College Dublin, as part of the 2nd round of the European Space Agency’s Fly Your Satellite! programme. In development since 2017, the mission has several scientific, technological and outreach goals. It will fly an in-house developed antenna deployment module, along with three custom payloads, which are integrated with commercial off-the-shelf subsystems. In preparation for the flight model, a full-system engineering qualification model of the spacecraft has undergone an extensive period of test campaigns, including full functional tests, a mission test, and environmental testing at the European Space Agency’s CubeSat Support Facility in Redu, Belgium. Beyond the technical, educational, and capacity-building goals of the mission, EIRSAT-1 aims to inspire wider study of STEM subjects, while highlighting the importance of multidisciplinary teams and creating greater awareness of space in everyday life. A wide range of outreach activities are being undertaken to realise these aims. This paper provides a status update on key aspects of the EIRSAT-1 project and the next steps towards launc

Investigating Jets and their Role in Star Formation

In this thesis, I present the results of a number of studies using high-resolution observations from world-class telescopes. The aim of these studies is to investigate protostellar jets and their role in star formation. In a case study of the bipolar jet from the T Tauri star DO Tau, we observe significant asymmetries in the morphology and kinematics of the jet and counterjet. The collimation of the jet supports the idea that magnetic fields collimate the jet, rather than pressure from the infalling envelope. If magnetic fields are responsible for jet collimation, then they may also drive jet launching. By measuring the radial velocities across the jet, we can calculate an upper limit on the jet launching radii. Our results support an X-wind or narrow disk wind model. Jet axis wiggling is also observed and is consistent with jet precession, which may be caused by an unseen companion in the disk or by launching the disk wind. In a study of four Class 0/I jets (HH 1, HH 34, HH 46 and HH 111) using high-resolution HST images, we were able to detect the inner knots of the red-shifted lobes in all four sources in more detail than previous studies. We compare these images to archival data to measure the proper motions in each jet. Jet axis wiggling is observed in three of these sources and the wiggling pattern in the HH 111 jet is consistent with jet precession and the presence of a companion in the disk. We also measure the extinction in each jet, which is quite high close to the star but decreases further out along each jet. Extinction measurements are important in the interpretation of emission line ratios, which reveal plasma conditions along the jet and hence the mass and momentum transfer. These two case studies illustrate the power of high resolution observations in differentiating between models of jet launching, and also reveal that protostellar jet trajectories could be a useful tool in identifying newly forming substellar companions close to the star. Finally, a survey of over 100 stars was conducted using high-resolution X-Shooter spectra. This study examines He I line profiles which vary between the two star forming regions examined in the sample, suggesting a trend with age. We also find that the maximum absorption velocity appears to be correlated with the source inclination and with the accretion rates of the sources. Our study confirms the results of past works (Edwards et al., 2006; Kwan et al., 2007; Fischer et al., 2008) and supports the idea that these winds are accretion powered. This survey gives context to our two case studies, by examining the link between accretion and ejection. High resolution observations are critical to advance understanding of the role of protostellar jets in star formation, as illustrated by the contribution of this thesis. The recently launched JWST facility marks the start of an era which will see exciting progress in this field, as its near-IR instruments peer deep into the embedded accretion-ejection engine.2022-06-30 JG: Signatures removed or redacted from PD

The near-UV: The true window on jet rotation

High resolution observations of jet rotation in newly forming stars have the potential to support theories of magneto-centrifugal jet launching. We report a detection of a radial velocity difference across the blue-shifted jet from RY Tau, the direction of which matches the CO disk rotation sense. Now, in 3 of 3 cases, the sense of the near-UV jet gradient matches the disk rotation sense, implying that we are indeed observing jet rotation. It seems the jet core, probed at near-UV wavelengths, is protected by the outer jet layers from kinematic contaminations, and thus represents the only true window on jet rotation

The near-UV: The true window on jet rotation

High resolution observations of jet rotation in newly forming stars have the potential to support theories of magneto-centrifugal jet launching. We report a detection of a radial velocity difference across the blue-shifted jet from RY Tau, the direction of which matches the CO disk rotation sense. Now, in 3 of 3 cases, the sense of the near-UV jet gradient matches the disk rotation sense, implying that we are indeed observing jet rotation. It seems the jet core, probed at near-UV wavelengths, is protected by the outer jet layers from kinematic contaminations, and thus represents the only true window on jet rotation

Probing jets from young embedded sources: Clues from HST near-IR [Fe II] images

We present near-infrared [Fe II] images of four Class 0/I jets (HH 1/2, HH 34, HH 111, HH 46/47) observed with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Camera 3. The unprecedented angular resolution allows us to measure proper motions, jet widths and trajectories, and extinction along the jets. In all cases, we detect the counterjet, which was barely visible or invisible at shorter wavelengths. We measure tangential velocities of a few hundred kilometers per second, consistent with previous HST measurements over 10 years ago. We measure the jet width as close as a few tens of au from the star, revealing high collimations of about 2° for HH 1, HH 34, and HH 111 and about 8° for HH 46, all of which are preserved up to large distances. For HH 34, we find evidence of a larger initial opening angle of about 7°. Measurement of knot positions reveals deviations in trajectory of both the jet and counterjet of all sources. Analysis of asymmetries in the inner knot positions for HH 111 suggests the presence of a low mass stellar companion at separation 20-30 au. Finally, we find extinction values of 15- 20 mag near the source, which gradually decrease moving downstream along the jet. These observations have allowed us to study the counterjet at unprecedentedly high angular resolution and will be a valuable reference for planning future JWST mid-infrared observations that will peer even closer into the jet engine

EIRSAT-1 - The Educational Irish Research Satellite

The 2nd Symposium on Space Educational Activities (SSEA), Budapest, Hungary, 11-13 April 2018The Educational Irish Research Satellite, "EIRSAT-1", is a collaborative space project that aims to build, launch and operate the first ever Irish satellite. The EIRSAT-1 spacecraft is a 2U CubeSat incorporating three novel experiment payloads: GMOD, a gamma-ray detector; EMOD, a thermal management coating demonstration; and WBC, an attitude control algorithm. The spacecraft is currently under construction at University College Dublin and will be delivered to ESA in late 2019.Enterprise IrelandEuropean Space AgencyIrish Research CouncilUniversity College DublinENIBOIDEASSensL.Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovatio