3UCubed: The IMAP Student Collaboration CubeSat Project

Marcus Alfred; Sonya Smith; Charles Kim; Carissma McGee; Ruth Davis; Myles Pope; Taran Richardson; Trinity Sager; Avery Williams; Matthew Gales; Wilson Jean Baptiste; Tyrese Kierstdet; Oluwatamilore Ogunbanjo; Laura Peticolas; Lynn Cominsky; Garrett Jernigan; Jeffrey Reedy; Doug Clarke; Sabrina Blais; Erik Castellanos-Vasquez; Jack Dawson; Erika Diaz Ramirez; Walter Foster; Cristopher Gopar Carreno; Haley Joerger; Onasis Mora; Alex Vasquez; Sanjeev Mehta; Noé Lugaz; Lindsay Bartolone; Marc Lessard Jenna Burgett; Kelly Bisson; Luke Bradley; Jeffrey Campbell; Mathieu Champagne; Alex Chesley; Jeff Grant; Hanyu Jiang; Jared King; Emily McLain; Matthew Rollend; Shane Woods

arXiv · 2211.15781

3UCubed: The IMAP Student Collaboration CubeSat Project

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Abstract

The 3UCubed project is a 3U CubeSat being jointly developed by the University of New Hampshire, Sonoma State University, and Howard University as a part of the NASA Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, IMAP, student collaboration. This project comprises of a multidisciplinary team of undergraduate students from all three universities. The mission goal of the 3UCubed is to understand how Earths polar upper atmosphere the thermosphere in Earths auroral regions, responds to particle precipitation and solar wind forcing, and internal magnetospheric processes. 3UCubed includes two instruments with rocket heritage to achieve the science mission: an ultraviolet photomultiplier tube, UVPMT, and an electron retarding potential analyzer ERPA. The spacecraft bus consists of the following subsystems: Attitude Determination and Control, Command and Data Handling, Power, Communication, Structural, and Thermal. Currently, the project is in the post-PDR stage, starting to build and test engineering models to develop a FlatSat prior to critical design review in 2023. The goal is to launch at least one 3U CubeSat to collect science data close to the anticipated peak of Solar Cycle 25 around July 2025. Our mother mission, IMAP, is also projected to launch in 2025, which will let us jointly analyze the science data of the main mission, providing the solar wind measurements and inputs to the magnetosphere with that of 3UCubed, providing the response of Earths cusp to these inputs.

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Marcus Alfred, Sonya Smith, Charles Kim, Carissma McGee, Ruth Davis, Myles Pope, Taran Richardson, Trinity Sager, Avery Williams, Matthew Gales, Wilson Jean Baptiste, Tyrese Kierstdet, Oluwatamilore Ogunbanjo, Laura Peticolas, Lynn Cominsky, Garrett Jernigan, Jeffrey Reedy, Doug Clarke, Sabrina Blais, Erik Castellanos-Vasquez, Jack Dawson, Erika Diaz Ramirez, Walter Foster, Cristopher Gopar Carreno, Haley Joerger, Onasis Mora, Alex Vasquez, Sanjeev Mehta, Noé Lugaz, Lindsay Bartolone, Marc Lessard Jenna Burgett, Kelly Bisson, Luke Bradley, Jeffrey Campbell, Mathieu Champagne, Alex Chesley, Jeff Grant, Hanyu Jiang, Jared King, Emily McLain, Matthew Rollend, Shane Woods. 2022-11-28. 3UCubed: The IMAP Student Collaboration CubeSat Project. https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.15781

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