What is Minnesat?

The US Air Force (USAF) University Nanosat Program is a joint program run by the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicle Directorate (AFRL/VS), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The major objective of the program is to educate and train the future workforce that will be responsible for the design and operation of miniature satellites. A secondary objective of the program is to explore satellite research problems that are of current interest to the US Air Force and NASA.
The program achieves these dual goals by a national student satellite design and fabrication competition. The competition involves eleven universities where each university team must design a space-worthy nano-satellite (or nanosat for short) to perform a science experiment which addresses a problem of current interest to the USAF and NASA. At the end of the competition, a single winner is selected by a panel of experts. The winning nanosat design is launched by the USAF and the winning team gets to conduct their experiment on orbit.
Minnesat is the University of Minnesota’s entry into the USAF University Nanosat Program and its science mission is to explore a novel method of orientation (or attitude) determination for miniature satellites. Minnesat will be exploring a technique of attitude determination where signals from the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites are used like a radio interferometer. Making such radio interferometers work on miniature satellites such as Minnesat requires, in part, developing methods for precise calibration of GPS antenna gain patterns.
Minnesat is a hexagonal-shaped satellite. For its science mission it will carry eight GPS antenna/receiver pairs which form the interferometer. One antenna is located on each face of the satellite. The satellite also has various other systems such as a thermal management system, a flight computer system, and a communications system which are there to support the science experiment.
The Minnesat team consists of 20 students (both undergraduate and graduate from various departments in IT) and 3 faculty members from the Aerospace and Electrical Engineering Departments. Design and analysis of most of the satellite’s systems have been completed and the team has commenced prototyping and building the actual space qualified hardware. Final selection of the winning design will occur in March 2007.

Thanks for all the sponsors of the Minnestat Project: AFOSR, AFRL, Goodrich, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, NASA, Tennant, the Digital Technology Center, Richard DeLeo, Torpedo Specialty Wire, Inc., EMJ Metals, and other AEM Alumni Sponsors.

For more information about the Minnesat project contact Prof. Gebre-Egziabher (gebre@aem.umn.edu) or the student program manager, Jason Mintz (mint0023@umn.edu)