Autonomous navigation, attitude determination and atmospheric profiling for nanosatellite missions

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Nanosatellite missions are becoming increasingly popular for proving space technologies. Potential exists for a range of applications including earth observation and mobile communication systems. In order to keep costs of such missions low, navigation and attitude determination systems are generally based on off-the-shelf components. Such components are not necessarily optimized for space applications, however, and a need exists to develop a navigation receiver and attitude determination capabilities specifically for nanosatellite applications. In the case of navigation capabilities, GNSS receivers must be small, lightweight, low-cost, and have low power consumption. In this project Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers will be designed for nanosatellite applications, with onboard orbit determination to aid receiver tracking and acquisition. Novel methods for space-borne atmospheric profiling using this receiver (based on radio occultations) will be developed taking advantage of new GNSS signals. In particular, the addition of civilian dual-frequency capabilities to the GPS Block IIR-M satellites will be exploited to improve performance near the lower and upper atmosphere boundaries. Attitude determination capabilities will be developed using the latest MEMS sensor technologies, specialized for nanosatellite implementation. This work will be conducted in partnership with the Canadian Space Agency and industrial partner NovAtel Inc.