Developing mission operations tools and procedures for the Microwave Radiometer Technology Acceleration (MiRaTA) CubeSat Mission

Abstract

Small satellites (CubeSats) provide platforms for science payloads in space. A previous Earth weather observing CubeSat mission, the Micro-sized Microwave Atmospheric Satellite-1 (MicroMAS-1), used a manual approach to both testing and commanding. This approach did not work well when it came to mission operations, as it was error-prone, stressful, and non-repeatable. In this thesis work, we designed and implemented an automated testing framework for the Microwave Radiometer Technology Acceleration (MiRaTA) CubeSat, which was used during testing and mission operations; we also prepared tools and procedures for mission operations. The Mi-RaTA system presented large improvements in usability and repeatability as compared to the MicroMAS-1 system; for instance, an automated functional test could be run 38x faster as compared to a manual functional test.