OpenSatKit Enables Quick Startup for CubeSat Missions

The software required to develop, integrate, and operate a spacecraft is substantial regardless of whether it’s a large or small satellite. Even getting started can be a monumental task. Every satellite mission requires three primary categories of software to function. The first is Flight Software (FSW) which provides the onboard control of the satellites and its payload(s). Second, while developing a satellite on earth, it is necessary to simulate the satellite’s orbit, attitude, and actuators, to ensure that the systems that control these aspects will work correctly in the real environment. Finally, the ground has to be able to communicate with the satellite, monitor its performance and health, and display its data. OpenSatKit provides these three software components in an open source software package. It combines NASA’s Core Flight System (cFS)1,2, NASA’s 423 spacecraft dynamics simulator, and Ball Aerospace’s COSMOS4 ground system into a system that can be deployed and operational within hours. OpenSatKit is designed to simplify the task of integrating new FSW applications and an example Raspberry Pi target is included so users can gain experience working with a low-cost embedded hardware target. All users can benefit from OpenSatKit but the greatest impact and benefits will be to SmallSat missions with constrained budgets and small software teams

How, What, Where, and Why to Open Source Small Satellite Software

How do you open source small satellite software? What are the expected costs, obstacles, and benefits? Why would you even want to release your software to the world? Is it safe to use open source software? Open source software like Ball Aerospace COSMOS fills an important need for SmallSat missions where spending the budget for a traditional ground system would be more than the full cost of the satellite. However, nothing is ever truly free and there are a lot of misunderstandings about open source software in the Aerospace industry. This presentation will answer those questions while discussing the specific choices that were made in open sourcing the Ball Aerospace COSMOS Command and Control System. Additionally, this presentation will discuss the adoption of COSMOS since it was open sourced 4 years ago and where it is going in the future

A Dynamic Open Source Long Term Archiving and Trending Solution for Small Satellites

Archiving and trending data is a universal problem for satellite operators. Traditionally this functionality is coded from scratch when creating a ground software solution for a satellite program. This is time consuming, costly and impractical for the typically cost constrained small satellite environment. The open source COSMOS C2 system has eased the burden on small satellite operators for over three years. Its emphasis on simple text file based configuration and ease of use has enabled dramatic cost and time savings across the industry. However, until recently it did not have an included archiving and trending tool. To analyze telemetry, users had to open individual telemetry log files which made trending over time periods of days, weeks, and months very time consuming if not altogether impractical. That has changed with the introduction of DART (Data Archival Retrieval and Trending). DART utilizes a SQL database and maintains the original COSMOS telemetry files while providing instant access to decommutated data over long time periods. DART synchronizes with the COSMOS server and stays up to date even as telemetry definitions change and data points are added and removed. This paper discusses the need and use cases for a data archiving and trending solution in the small satellite environment. It outlines the architectural and implementation details which went into the creation of the DART tool. Finally, it explores the tool in action with practical use cases using real telemetry data

Early Psychosis Intervention in Oregon: Building a Positive Future for this Generation

The article focuses on the importance of early Schizophrenia intervention

Family Aided Community Treatment For The Treatment Of Early Psychosis: A Proof Of Concept Study

Major psychotic disorders are one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. If these conditions are identified early and treatment promptly implemented, the prognosis is improved. This study examined the impact of a yearlong family aided community treatment (FACT) intervention upon psychiatric symptoms. Psychiatric symptom scores improved with the FACT intervention. Improved training on early recognition for mental health clinicians, implementation of a specific treatment model in community settings and policy around treatment funding allocation are implications of this study

Non Radiation Hardened Microprocessors in Spaced Based Remote Sensing Systems

The CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations) mission is a comprehensive suite of active and passive sensors including a 20Hz 230mj Nd:YAG lidar, a visible wavelength Earth-looking camera and an imaging infrared radiometer. CALIPSO flies in formation with the Earth Observing System Post-Meridian (EOS PM) train, provides continuous, near-simultaneous measurements and is a planned 3 year mission. CALIPSO was launched into a 98 degree sun synchronous Earth orbit in April of 2006 to study clouds and aerosols and acquires over 5 gigabytes of data every 24 hours. The ground track of one CALIPSO orbit as well as high and low intensity South Atlantic Anomaly outlines is shown. CALIPSO passes through the SAA several times each day. Spaced based remote sensing systems that include multiple instruments and/or instruments such as lidar generate large volumes of data and require robust real-time hardware and software mechanisms and high throughput processors. Due to onboard storage restrictions and telemetry downlink limitations these systems must pre-process and reduce the data before sending it to the ground. This onboard processing and realtime requirement load may mean that newer more powerful processors are needed even though acceptable radiation-hardened versions have not yet been released. CALIPSO's single board computer payload controller processor is actually a set of four (4) voting non-radiation hardened COTS Power PC 603r's built on a single width VME card by General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems (GDAIS). Significant radiation concerns for CALIPSO and other Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites include the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA), the north and south poles and strong solar events. Over much of South America and extending into the South Atlantic Ocean the Van Allen radiation belts dip to just 200-800km and spacecraft entering this area are subjected to high energy protons and experience higher than normal Single Event Upset (SEU) and Single Event Latch-up (SEL) rates. Although less significant, spacecraft flying in the area around the poles experience similar upsets. Finally, powerful solar proton events in the range of 10MeV/10pfu to 100MeV/1pfu as are forecasted and tracked by NOAA's Space Environment Center in Colorado can result in Single Event Upset (SEU), Single Event Latch-up (SEL) and permanent failures such as Single Event Gate Rupture (SEGR) in some technologies. (Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs) are another source, especially for gate rupture) CALIPSO mitigates common radiation concerns in its data handling through the use of redundant processors, radiation-hardened Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC), hardware-based Error Detection and Correction (EDAC), processor and memory scrubbing, redundant boot code and mirrored files. After presenting a system overview this paper will expand on each of these strategies. Where applicable, related on-orbit data collected since the CALIPSO initial boot on May 4, 2006 will be noted

Family Psychoeducation in Clinical High Risk and First- Episode Psychosis

Seventy percent of those who will have an episode of psychosis will have done so by age 25. Data from clinical trials of intervention during the clinical high risk period of psychosis have determined that the mean age is in mid-adolescence, 16-18 years of age. For those reasons, early intervention inherently involves adolescents, and by extension their parents and other family members and supports. Regarding the type of intervention, it is relevant that the current empirically-derived standard of treatment for schizophrenia, as concluded by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research survey of the treatment outcome literature, includes family psychoeducation, supported employment, assertive community treatment and antipsychotic medication,; i.e., a combination of psychosocial and pharmacologic interventions. Combinations of all four of these treatments, as in Family-aided Assertive Community Treatment (FACT), achieve very low rates of relapse, substantial reductions of symptoms and remarkable functional outcomes, particularly in the domain of competitive employment. Furthermore, a large comparative study of outcomes in community settings found that psychoeducational multifamily groups were more effective than single-family psychoeducation specifically in the first episode and in high-risk-for relapse cases, suggesting that particular psychosocial treatments may be especially effective in early phases of illness