UND ROADS: A Low-Cost 3U CubeSat Approach to Rendezvous, Proximity Operations, And Docking

The University of North Dakota’s Rendezvous & Operations for Autonomous Docking and Servicing (UND ROADS) mission will show through a flight demo that Rendezvous, Proximity Operations, and Docking (RPOD) can be accomplished by two 3U CubeSats at orders-of-magnitude lower cost and complexity than today’s benchmark missions. Instead of cameras or LiDAR, ROADS employs an inter-satellite RF link combined with carrier-phase differential GNSS (CDGNSS) to deliver centimeter-level relative navigation entirely onboard, eliminating reliance on continuous ground contact, ground processing or complex on-board sensor packages. Coupling this sensing architecture with an innovative re-configurable magnetic docking system and predictive Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) algorithms, enables a minimalist spacecraft bus: requiring less than 10W average power during RPOD, a cost-effective reliable cold-gas propulsion system with less than 23 m/s ∆ V and an attitude, determination & control system without star trackers. Beyond the technology firsts, UND ROADS is an integrated education and research platform. At the newly commissioned spacecraft operations center at the University of North Dakota, students and faculty will operate the mission in real time with the support of mission prime, AVS, gaining hands-on experience with scheduling, telemetry analysis, and contingency response while refining UND’s Doppler-tracking models for satellite navigation. By simultaneously advancing low-cost RPOD, collaborative spacecraft navigation techniques, and embedding authentic flight operations into an academic curriculum, ROADS aims to unlock autonomous servicing for all sizes of spacecraft while cultivating the next generation of space engineers and scientists.