Naval Postgraduate School Petite Amateur Navy Satellite (PANSAT)

Abstract

The Naval Postgraduate School's (NPS) Space Systems Academic Group (SSAG) is designing and developing a small communications satellite. The objectives of PANSAT are three-fold. First, PANSAT will provide an ideal educational tool for the officer students at NPS supporting Space Systems Engineering and Space Systems Operations with hands-on hardware development. Secondly, the satellite will provide digital store-and-forward communications, or Packet Radio, for the amateur radio community. The third objective is to provide a low-cost, space-based platform for small experiments. PANSAT will be launched into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for NPS coverage. The satellite weight is 150 lbs. Since there is no attitude control, dipole whip antennas will be used to provide isotropic ground coverage for communications. FM digital communications will be used with up-link and down-link on a single frequency in the proposed amateur band of 437.25 MHz. 25 kHz of bandwidth will be required. The expected life of the satellite is 1 1/2 to 2 years. The PANSAT design consists of the following: Communications Subsystem (COMM); Computer, or Data Processor & Sequencer (DP&S); Power Subsystem; Structure Subsystem; and Experiment Payload. The following is an overview of the project outlining initial design studies in the areas of the computer subsystem and structure subsystem and articulation on the specifications of the other subsystems.