Associate Professor Pål Gunnar Ellingsen contribution to the mission
There is currently a hole in our knowledge about space debris, as ground based techniques can not detect objects below ~10 mm i diameter and their flux is low enough that space based impact detectors are not seeing them. To cover this hole we are developing an in-orbit space debris radar capable of detecting the millimeter sized particles. This is the radar that we are planning on flying on the CENSSAT-1 mission.
Doctoral Research Fellow Alessio Bocci contribution to the mission
Executing orbital maneuvers using passive control algorithms is one of the main challenges in modern space research, especially with the introduction of CubeSats, which typically lack propulsion systems. The primary method employed for this purpose is drag-based algorithms, which focus on adjusting the satellite's effective surface (i.e., the surface seen by the Earth's atmosphere/spacecraft relative velocity vector) to modulate the drag force. In the CENSSAT-1 mission, we plan to test two types of algorithms. The first algorithm involves a series of attitude maneuvers executed by the ADCS to achieve a predetermined effective surface profile. The second algorithm controls a virtual leader/follower formation flight configuration. This experiment will consist of a sequence of attitude maneuvers designed to modify the satellite's effective surface to maintain a desired separation between the actual satellite and a virtual satellite, which the onboard computer will simulate.