CANADIAN ADVANCED NANOSPACE EXPERIMENT 2: ON-ORBIT EXPERIENCES WITH A THREE-KILOGRAM SATELLITE

摘要

The objective of the Canadian Advanced Nanospace eXperiment (CanX) program is to develop highly capable"nanospacecraft," or spacecraft under 10 kilograms, in short timeframes of 2-3 years. CanX missions offer low-costand rapid access to space for scientists, technology developers, and operationally responsive missions. The SpaceFlight Laboratory (SFL) at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) has developed theCanadian Advanced Nanospace eXperiment 2 (CanX-2) nanosatellite that launched in April 2008. CanX-2, a 3.5-kg,10 × 10 × 34 cm satellite, features a collection of scientific and engineering payloads that push the envelope ofcapability for this class of spacecraft. The primary mission of CanX-2 is to test and demonstrate several enablingtechnologies for precise formation flight. These technologies include a custom cold-gas propulsion system, a 30mNms nanosatellite reaction wheel as part of a three-axis stabilized momentum-bias attitude control system, and acommercially available GPS receiver. The secondary objective of CanX-2 is to fly a number of universityexperiments including an atmospheric spectrometer. At the time of writing CanX-2 has been in orbit for threeweeks and has performed very well during preliminary commissioning. The mission, the engineering and scientificpayloads, and the preliminary on-orbit commissioning experiences of CanX-2 are presented in this paper.