Jacob Gavan
Fellow IEEE
October 2013
Introduction
 In the Beginning of the 17th Century KEPLER discovered
the existence of Natural Satellites and their Orbit
equations, but only in 1957 was Launched the First Russian
(Artificial) Satellite SPUTNIK in a Low Earth Orbit(LEO)
Due to the Advancements in the Development of Rockets.
 In 1963 was Launched the first US Geostationary (GEO)
Satellite due to the prediction of Arthur Clark in 1945
Inspired by the 3rd equation of KEPLER.
 GEO satellites enable reliable long distance radio –
communication with minimal interference
 Satellite is an Interdisciplinary Field and the Subject of
Satellite Radio Communication is One of the Most
Importance.
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Introduction: Main Satellite Orbits
LEO: 300-2000 Km
MEO:4000-8000,20000Km
GEO: 36000 Km
LPO :Moon ,Planets and
future projects
In 2013 are operating
several Thousands LEO,
more than 400 GEO and
around 100 MEO satellites.
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Classification of Satellites
Type
Weight
Sat. Price
Launch
Price
($ X M)
Insurance
Price
($ X M)
Total Price
($ X M)
($ X M)
Mega-sat.
>5T
500
150
80
730
Large-sat.
(2-5)T
200
100
50
350
Sat.
(1-2)T
150
80
40
270
Mini-sat.
(100-1000)Kg 100
40
25
165
Micro-sat.
(10-100) Kg
0.2-20
0-10
0-5
0.2-35
Nano-sat.
(1-10)Kg
0.1-5
0-2
0-1
0.1-8
Pico-sat.
(0.1-1)Kg
0.05-2
0-0.6
0-0.4
0.05-3
Femto-sat.
<0.1kg . Very thin
satellites
An Important part of the sat. cost is the salary of the specialist s and its space
reliability tests.
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Micro and Mini-satellites
Micro-sat.
First
Manufalaunch Cturer
Weight
(kg)
Height
(km)
Orbit
Use
ORBCOMM 1998
Small LEO
Boeing
80
800
LEO 35
sat.
circular
Communication
Slow data, SMS
OFEK 5
5.02
IAI
300
370-600
LEO
Elliptic
Intelligence,
Remote sensing
GURWIN/
OSCAR 32
7.98
TECHNION 60
HAIFA
815
LEO
Radio-Amateur
Circular Communication
The extreme miniaturization of electronic systems predicted
by Moore “doubling the number of elements on an IC each 18
months approximately” enable the building of reliable small
sat. . These small sat. can provide good performance at low
cost but, due to the limited place, redundancy is difficult to
implement, which may limit sat. life time and performances.
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Radio Amateur Satellites-OSCAR
 (Orbital Satellites Carrying Amateurs) Radio OSCAR was
founded in 1960.OSCAR1 the first non government Micro
Satellite was launched in 12.61 transmitted Morse signals at
145MHz for 3 weeks.
 GURWIN/OSCAR32 built in the TECHNION and launched the
7.98. The Satellite has a cubic form a=44.5cm and operated for
more than 10 years at 145, 435 and 1270 MHz. P=20W .
Nowadays radio amateurs from more than 24 countries and
thousands of Engineering students all over the world
are building hundreds of Pico and Nano-satellites .
Each earth station is connected with a LEO small
Satellite less than 15 minutes for each cycle and 97%
of the time is not connected to the specific satellite .
 Therefore is required a network of earth stations to
control and operate properly LEO small satellites.
Several amateur satellites failed in launch or operation.
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Small Satellites Radio Frequencies
 The LEO small satellites use often the VHF band from
 (30-300)MHz which are significantly lower than the UHF
and SHF Microwave bands used for bigger satellites.
 The VHF are vulnerable because of the Faraday effect
signal distortions from the Ionosphere layers. This effect
can usually be neglected in case of narrow bandwidths up
to 4.8kbps used generally for small satellites.
 The terrestrial mutual interference are often higher in VHF.
 The dispersion losses in VHF are significantly lower than
for higher frequency bands which enable reduced
transmitter power in the UP-LINK and especially in the
power limited DOWN-LINK.
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Advantages and disadvantages of small
Satellites
Advantages
 Low price
 Fast and low cost construction and replacement
 Simple and lower cost launching with less pollution
 Enhance the quantity and quality of students in space
technology
Disadvantages
 Increase space junk
 Limitations in power , redundancy and reliability
 Less regulations and more interference
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Thin Satellites Cube-Sat
Stanford and Polytechnic California State U. have
developed in 1999 an open source standard means
for building and launching thin low cost nano
and pico satellites. The Cube-sat. kit is a 10cm size
cube weighting around 1 kg called the 1U. Are also
available the pico-sat. 0.5U or for nano-sat. the 2
and 3U as shown in the figures. A P-POD Poly. Push
Out and Deploy sub system is added
The cost for academic students to build an 1U cubesat. is less than $100k.
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5 Comments
Cube-sat with many Very Thin FEMTO-SAT
In the pictures the Cornell U.
sprite 2cm x 2cm x 2mm. is
printed on a small light wafer
of silicon. The Microcontroller
is a TI-MSP430. The sprite
could include also miniature
sensors such as mini cameras,
magnetometers and GPS chips.
The cube sat could carry
hundreds of spring loaded
sprites. The sprites could be
positioned in orbit till 500km
for radio communication by
sailing on solar wind dip into
space like cosmic dust, without
onboard fuel supply.
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The US Air Force Research Laboratory developed in 2004 the Modular Open Source
ARCHitecture (MONARCH) for building small satellites using Plug and Play and 3D
printing techniques.
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NASA Special Nano-Satellite
The high performance NASA’s nano-sat. Aercam was launched
from a Space Shuttle (STS) in 2005 to inspect and protect SS
and the ISS. The Aercam is just 19cm in diameter, weight only
4.5kg and include a Li Ion battery and propellant. An earlier
Aercam could prevent the STS-107 disaster of 2003 and save
the life of Ilan Ramon and his friends.
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EMC Considerations for Small
Satellites
 The increasing number of sat.,
especially small and thin, enhance
the magnitude and probability of
noise and interference.
 The threats are mostly from the
great numbers of sat. built by
students, which need to be
regulated and controlled from the
design steps by EMC experts.
 Downlink Interference is more
important due to the thin sat.
limited output power and the
strong level of terrestrial VHF
interference which reduce S/N+I.
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Main Mitigation Techniques to
Reduce Small Sat. Interference.
 The important mitigation measures are primary to keep the
uplink and downlink Tx output spectrum clean from
spurious and out of band noise in order not to disturb
other users, especially Radio Astronomers .Secondary to
protect the Rx from excessive noise and interference.
 The main required mitigation techniques are: filtering in
the F domain, spatial (nuling) and adaptive filtering for
the downlink Rx, shielding and linearization especially for
the output Tx stages. De orbit of space junk will also be
useful. The leadership of an international regulation
organization such as the ITU is a must in collaboration
with regional and national institutions.
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Israel main activities in Small Satellites
 INSA Israel Nano-Sat Association was founded in 2006.
 INSA cooperates with the Asher institute of the Technion
in Haifa and with the IAI in the R&D of small satellites. The
Technion is also collaborating with Cornell U. in this field.
 The Technion has successfully operate the Gurvin mini–sat.
Now is developed the INKLAJN nano-sat. that will execute
7 experiments at an altitude of 650km and a cluster of 3
sat. 6kg each for accurate positioning predicted for 2015.
 The homeland security institute in BGU has received in
12.12 a $1M donation for launching 2 pico-sats carrying
remote sensing, communication and GPS technologies.
 Activities in small sat. at the high school scientific center
in Hertzelia and at the international conferences in honor
of Ilan Ramon.
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Participation in the small satellite market
(Euro consult)
 90% of the small sat. are for academic projects and the
rest for government and commercial purposes, but
only 10% of the budget are for academic projects.
 The US has 30% share due to high-demand from
NASA and the DOD.
 Europe enjoys a 25% share, while Asia follows with
22% thanks to activities in China and Japan.
 Russia has a 13% share of the market, while the Middle
East and Africa tops 9% and the rest of the world
follows with 5%.
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Forecasting for Small Satellites
 Development of complex small sat. clusters for home
security and other applications.
 Protection of important sat. by several small sat. sentinels.
Modular open network architecture , Plug and Play and 3-D
printing advanced techniques for fast design of small sat.
 Operation of efficient techniques for reducing interference
and de-orbit space junk.
 Design of miniature smaller than Femto-sat. up to the level
of Sat. on a chip (SOC).
 Development of small sat. for the exploration of the moon
and the planets.
 National and International enhanced activities of students
for improving their skills in STEM and in the design and
building of small satellites.
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Conclusions
 The investing, development and operation of small
satellites are increasing significantly due to their usefulness
and several advantages over bigger sat. especially in low
cost and fast productions
 The applications of the interdisciplinary small sat. field are
numerous from military to educational and the radio sub
systems are of most importance.
 The low cost, open source standards and short time
required to build and launch small sat. will enhance the
quantity and quality of needy space engineers and
scientists.
 EMC strict regulations and reduction of interference
sources is a must for the development of thin sat. systems.
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Selected References
1. pp(182-188)1984\4 ‫יעקב גוון "לוויינים קשר התקשורת" עיתון מדע של מכון וייצמן‬
2 .SO Keefe “Pioneering the Future” NASA Facts December 2002 pp(1-12).
3. E.Emma, and All; “Motivating Young Europeans for a future in Space” ESA Bulletin
N135 August 2008 pp(27-35)
4. J.C.Lyke, J.Mac Neill; “Plug and Play Satellites” IEEE Spectrum Vol.49 8.12
pp(30-36)
5. A.Torkild ,and All; “Maritime Traffic Monitoring using a Space based AIS Receiver”
Acta Astronautica Vol. 58 May 2006 pp(537-549).
6. R.R Milliron, “Enabling Space Access” Sat. Magazine: The Microsatellite market 1.11
7. R.R Milliron, “Insigth: Inter-orbital Fosters Small Satellite Surge ”Sat. Magazine 10.11
8. Comtech Aeroastro, *Focus the Power of the Pico-satellites” Sat Magazine 1.11
9. H Page, R.Walker; “Flying Students Experiments to he Edge of Space” ESA Bulletin
N 144 February 2012 pp(33-38).
10. J.Gavan,R.Perez,editor; “Handbook of Electro Magnetic Compatibility” Chapters
19,20; Academic Press, 1995.
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References (2)
11. Casro, et All; “GENSO Pre-Operational Activities and Preparation for GEOID/HUMSAT
Operations” ESA Bulletin N149 February 2012 PP(39-43
12. J.Foust, “Emerging opportunities for low cost small satellites in civil and commercial space”
Futron report 2011
13. H.Helvasian, S.W. Janson Editors; ”Small Satellites : Past , Present and Future” The Aerospace
Press AIIA. 8.09
14. T. Bekey; “ Advanced Space Systems Concepts and technologies:2010-2030” The Aerospace
Press 2009.
15. J.A. Atchison,M.A.Peck ;“A Passive Sun-Pointing Millimeter-Scale Solar Sail” Acta
Astronautico, Vol.67 ,7/8 2010, PP(108-121).
16. M.A. Peck; “How Sat. the Size of Chips Could Revolutionize the Way we Explore Space”;IEEE
Spectrum August 2011, PP(39-43).
17. P.Fortescue, G.Swinerd, J.stark, Editors; “Spacecraft Systems Engineering”,4th edition, 2011, J.
Wiley
WWW.aiaa.org WWW.insasite.com WWW.spacecraftresearch.com
WWW.cubesat.wikidot.com WWW.nasa.gov/grail
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Thin Planet satellites: Development,
State of the Art and EMC Issues
Headlines
 Introduction
 Classification of Satellites
 Description of Small and Thin Satellites.
 Radio Amateurs and Students Thin Satellites
 Development of Very Thin Satellites
 Worldwide Activities in Thin Satellites
 Interference effects Concerning Thin Satellites
Forecasting and Conclusions
 Selected References
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Main Applications of Small Satellites
 Radio communication systems with limited power and









bandwidth including Radio Amateur Services
M2M and Automatic Identification Systems (AIS)
Weather predictions
Remote sensing
Earth and atmosphere exploration
Scientific Research
Cluster operation using tether or radio links
Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR)
military and defense missions
Test of new space systems and technologies
Training man power in space technology and science
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23
Swiss Cubesat. to reduce junk
A previous EPFL
Swiss cube sat.
was launched on
9.09 from India
for scientific
missions and
radio amateurs
services at 375
MHz. and is still
operating.
24
Far East Activity
Special Student Pico-sat. from Vietnam.
This LEO Pico-sat was launched in 10.2012 from the ISS
with 7 other small sat. using a Japanese robotic arm.
25
NASA and DARPA Main Activities
 NASA, DARPA and the DOD have collaborated in the
FASTSAT project investing $80M (for2010 only) to develop
high quality special small satellites and launchers.
 Comtech-Aeroaustro & Utah state U. have developed for
NASA a Coral bus, a P pad launcher, a 3U cube-sat. kit, and
STP novel and high reliability small satellites.
 Development of small satellites with education institutions
for attracting, motivating and training engineers and
scientists, especially in space science.
 In 2011/12 the NASA participated in the design and
launched free of charge 8 US students sat. For 2013/14 will
be launched 32 sat. up to a total weight of 45kg.
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Future Femto Sat )2(
 Sprites use a multi-chip module
architecture to achieve a form factor of
2cm x 2cm x 2mm. Using matched
filtering techniques, the sprite can
close a communications link from a
500km orbit altitude.
 In the design packages the traditional
spacecraft systems (power, propulsion,
communications, etc) will be included
into a single silicon microchip smaller
than a dime and unconstrained by
onboard fuel. The target is a Sat. On a
Chip (SOC)
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