SURFSAT: Supporting Deep-Space-Network Research and Development with a Student-Designed Small Satellite

SURFSAT is a small satellite designed primarily by students at the California Institute of Technology under Caltech's Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program and is sponsored by the Telecommunications and Data Acquisition Office at JPL, the research and development arm for the Deep Space Network (DSN). The project was initiated in the summer of 1987 and has involved several dozen undergraduate students. SURFSAT is designed to radiate at either the milliwatt or microwatt level in four bands: Sband (2.29 GHz), X-band (8.45 GHz), Ku-band (15.33 GHz) and Ka-band (32 GHz). The signals will be received by a new 34-meter DSN research antenna at Goldstone, California. Performance of the new Ku-band link will be analyzed and compared to the performance of the more standard X-band link. The S-band and Ku-band signals will be used to support DSN spacecraft acquisition tests and training. Other experiment objectives have also been identified, including spacecraft position and orbit determination demonstrations utilizing ground-based connected-element interferometers. It will also carry an optical beacon to demonstrate the possibility of communicating at infra-red wavelengths. The basic SURFSAT satellite is a solar powered cube, 12 inches on each side, that will tumble through space. Attitude stabilization is not required, and the satellites will not have a propulsion subsystem or batteries. Signals are to be radiated in all directions. Redundant command receivers will enable transmit modes of one milliwatt, one microwatt, and OFF. At least two SURFSATs are scheduled for launch as secondary payloads on a Delta rocket in May 1994; the primary payload for this mission is LAGEOS III.