The 8° Mission Idea Contest
For Multiple Nano-satellites

MOTHS
Moon
Observation
Through
Hyperspectral
Satellites
1

TRANSIENT LUNAR PHENOMENA
Short-lived changes in light, colour or appearance on the surface of theMoon observed from Earth. These phenomena range from foggy patches
to permanent changes in the lunar landscape.
• For future human lunar missions, to choose anappropriate Moon landing site and possible position
for lunar settlement, it is necessary to analyse thephenomena of TLP.
• To understand the colour-changing effect due to thisphenomenon, it is important to study the correlation
between outgassing and moonquakes.

Michela Boscia

MOTHS - 8th Mission Idea Contest

2

MOTHS MISSION OBJECTIVES

Michela Boscia

1

Detection of colour changes on the surface of the Moonin optical wavelengths, to locate the main affected sites
and to establish, if present, the correlation with
outgassing of Argon, Radon and Polonium.

2

Investigate the Argon outgassing location as anindicator of seismic activity with the perspective ofusing this data as a basis to determine landing sites forfuture human missions.

3

Verify if the TLP observations conducted from Earth’s
surface are affected by the atmosphere comparing, forthe same event, the data acquired from lunar orbit andfrom Earth.

MOTHS - 8th Mission Idea Contest

3CONCEPT OF OPERATIONSPHASE 1 – Acquisition Phase
Scientific data acquisition phase, which lastsfor 2 minutes and 30 seconds
Total of 4 acquisitions: 2 dark side & 2 visible
parton-board processing of the data

PHASE 2 – Download Phase
Downlink phase with a period of 1 hour and30 minutes per acquired data set.

Michela Boscia

MOTHS - 8th Mission Idea Contest

4

PERFORMANCE PARAMETERS
To ensure TLPs detection the spatial resolution shall be below 20 m, considering that thephenomena has an extension between a few kilometers, up to 100 km.

To have a spectral characterization of the TLPs, the spectral band to be investigatedshall be at least in the blue and red spectral region.

The GNSS receiver shall acquire, as a minimum set, the L1 GPS band and the E1 GALILEO
band from Earth GNSS constellations.

Michela Boscia

MOTHS - 8th Mission Idea Contest

5PRIMARY PAYLOAD
Hyperscape Specifications

SensorHyperscape100 from Simera Sense
Acquisition Mode
Hyperspectral Push-broom Imager

GSD@ (750 km)

SWATH@ (750km)

Data Rate@(32 bands)

7m

27 km

0.4 GB/s

Pixel (𝑥𝑖 , 𝑦𝑖 )Data Processing
Optical Images and spectral signatures for each wavelengthof the emission and absorbance phenomena

Wavelength

𝜆𝑥𝑦Intensity

Type of Spectral Data
Hypercube which is constituted by a large number ofcontiguous and narrow spectral bands

Wavelength 𝜆Full Spectrum Characterization
32 bands in a range of 442-884 nm with a spectral resolution of 0.2 nm

Alessia Di Giacomo

MOTHS - 8th Mission Idea Contest

6SECONDARY PAYLOAD
GNSS receiver SGR LIGO
It will operate at the GPS L1 band (C/Acode), GALILEO E1 band, and GLONASS G1band
LNSS receiver
Support for future Lunar Navigation andSafety Systems (LNSS)
Patch antenna EXA GCA01
It has a wide-band operation over GPS,GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou systems from1561MHz to 1606MHzAlessia Di Giacomo

MOTHS - 8th Mission Idea Contest

7

SATELLITE DESIGNBATTERY PACK AND
POWER
DISTRIBUTION UNIT

S-BAND AND X-BAND
TRANSCEIVER

ONBOARD COMPUTER
REACTION WHEELSHYPERSPECTRAL CAMERAPROPULSION UNIT

Alessia Di Giacomo

MOTHS - 8th Mission Idea Contest8OBDH & ADCS
OBDH

Proton400KTM

ADCS
Determination

Multi-core Single Board
Computer (SBC) built
around an advanced 45nm
dual-core NXP PowerPC• The SBC is Radiation-hardened and canendure an amount of Total Ionizing Dose up
to 100 krads• NXP P2020 is a dual-core 1.2 GHz, 32-bit
processor supporting DDR3 RAM up to 2 GB
with Error Detection and Correction (EDAC)
code• Storage capability of 256 GB

Alessia Di Giacomo

IMU Sensor
STIM300
Accuracy : 5°
NanoSense FSSFine sun sensor
Accuracy :- FOV<45°, +/-0.5°- FOV<60°, +/-2.0°
ST200 Star Tracker
Accuracy:- 30 arcsec- 200 arcsec (roll)

MOTHS - 8th Mission Idea Contest

Control
NanoTorque GSW-600
Reaction wheels inpyramid configuration
Characteristics:
Max torque per wheel:
1,5 NmVACCO ArgoMoon MiPS
Propulsion system
Characteristics:
delta-V=56 m/s
central thuster: 100 mN
4 cold gas thrusters: 25mN

9EPS
BATTERIES
Nano Power BPX•Utilizes 18650 Li-Ion cells with a nominal cell
capacity of 3000 mAh•86 Wh capacity

POWER BUDGET
Power[W]

POWER DISTRIBUTION UNIT
NANO Power P60 System
Composed o:- P60 Dock motherboard- Combination of an Array Conditioning Unit (ACU)- Power Distribution Unit (PDU)

Duty Cycle[min/orbit]

Power+55.00
140
Generation
Total Request Components
Total Request Components + 10% ofmargin
Power Margin per Orbit
DOD

PowerConsumption[Wh]+ 128.333-107.554-118.309+10.024313.8 %SOLAR PANELSNANO Power Tracking Solar 2030-3P• Deployable Solar Panels• SADA-50 gearbox mechanism• 45 W per wing

Alessia Di Giacomo

MOTHS - 8th Mission Idea Contest

10TT&C DTE
Direct-to-Earth (DTE) communication – X band prioritized
INSTRUMENTATIONGROUND STATION
Goldstone Deep Space
Communications Complex (GDSCC)
by NASA, California Specifications:34m diameter with G = 68.2 dBi indownlink
Malindi station, Kenya
Specifications 10m diameter with
G/T = 17.7 dB/K (in clear skyconditions) and G = 55.5 dBi
Sapienza University of Rome, Italy(in progress)

Carolina Ghini

X-BAND ANTENNAOperation frequency

8.025-8.400 GHz

RF power input<2WGain

10 dBiType

Patch antenna

Linear RF output power

Up to +33dBm

X-BAND TRANSCEIVER
X band Tx operation

8.025-8.400 GHz

X band Rx operation

7.145-7.250 GHz

Data rate Sat2Ground2 kbps -200 Mbps

Data rate Ground2Sat56 kbps+

MOTHS - 8th Mission Idea Contest

11TT&C – DTE
PASSAGE DATA DOWNLOAD
LINK BUDGET
FeatureUnit

Downlink

UplinkDistance

km

384400384400Frequency

Hz84008400

Total lossesdB

231,7231,7

Eb/N0dB

21,65

60,9

Eb/N0 required

dB

1818

Link MargindB

3,642,9Carolina Ghini

Contact time:
1h 30 mins per orbit

DOWNLOADED DATA
Data rate: 200Mbps

Data transmitted:
108000Mb (135GB)

STORAGE EMPTIED IN 2 PASSAGES

MOTHS - 8th Mission Idea Contest

12TT&C – ISL
Inter-Satellite-Link (ISL) communication (S-Band)
Used in case of failure of the DTE communication
possible with Lunar Gateway by NASA (launch in2024) and Lunar Pathfinder by SSTL (launch in2024)

LINK BUDGET
FeatureDistance
Frequency

UnitkmHz

Downlink
14000
2200

Uplink
14000
2200

Total losses

dB

189,3

Eb/N0dB

Eb/N0 required

Link Margin
Carolina Ghini

INSTRUMENTATION
S-BAND ANTENNAOperation frequency

1.980-2.500 GHz

RF power input50MHzGain

6-11dBiType

Dual patch antenna

Linear RF output power

Up to+33 dBm

S-BAND TRANSCEIVER
X band Tx operation

2.200 – 2.290 GHz

189,3

X band Rx operation

2.025-2.110 GHz

37,659,2

Data rate Sat2Ground2 kbps … 200 Mbps

dB

181856 kbps+

dB

19,641,2

Data rate Ground2Sat
Linear RF output power

MOTHS - 8th Mission Idea Contest

up to +33 dBm

13

ORBIT/CONSTELLATION DESCRIPTION
Six 6U CubeSat

two different orbital planes spaced at 180° RAANORBITAL PARAMETERS𝐞𝐚𝐢𝛚Ων028474 𝑘𝑚

80°0°0°0°Orbit 3D view
Ground Track of the two planes
Carolina Ghini

MOTHS - 8th Mission Idea Contest14ORBIT/CONSTELLATION DESCRIPTION
CubeSats on the planes are spaced from the first of respectively 60° and 120° in True Anomaly to not
overlie the sensors’ swaths and consequently increase the total coverage
Simultaneous observations on the moon’s far side and the side visible from Earth
Daily coverage percentage of 2.69% compared to the 0.45% of a single satellite
Complete lunar surface coverage in 37 days. Monthly revisit time enables mapping the areas mostaffected by the long-term phenomenon associated with outgassing
Earth to Moon transfer
1. Electron launcher from 2. Space Launch System
Rocket Lab(SLS) rocket

Carolina Ghini

MOTHS - 8th Mission Idea Contest

3. Falcon 9 Block 5 bySpaceX

15

IMPLEMENTATION PLAN
The MOTHS team comprises 22 students, studying for Master's and Bachelor's degrees in Aerospace engineering

COST BUDGET
Activity
Subsystem components
AIV and Testing*LaunchOperation and disposal
Payload
TOTAL (two years ofoperation)

Cost200000 €0€
5 million €1 million € per year
80000 €~7 million €*considering facility at the University and Student participation in AIV activities• governmental endorsement should be considered• For the first satellite, an Engineering Model (EM) and a
Flight Model (FM) will be produced• including manpower for the AIV and testing
activities almost 45% of the total costs• EM will be used for satellite testing and verification• resulting total of around 11 million euros

Michela Boscia

MOTHS - 8th Mission Idea Contest16

RISK ANALYSIS
Risk description
Risk level
Saturation of storage capacity due to Low
incorrect processing and compressionof dataImpossibility to send commands or Low
receive data to/from the CubeSat in Xband
Impossibility to desaturate the wheels Low
due to thruster malfunctions
Development complexity ofmission for a student teamInsufficientfundingfor
development of the mission

Michela Boscia

the Medium
the Medium

Mitigation action
Telecommand from Earth to reschedule theacquisition and downlink strategy
S band antenna and transceiver have been
addedinorder
toguarantee
telecommunications
The thruster will be tested fully tested on theground to guarantee its correct function
before the launch
Finding space agencies collaboration fortechnical support
Finding governmental project or spaceagencies
collaborationsfor
funding
opportunities

MOTHS - 8th Mission Idea Contest17

CONCLUSIONSMOTHS mission (Moon Observation Through Hyperspectral Satellites) consists of a constellation of six
6U CubeSats distributed on two orbital planes

MOTHS payload consists of an Hyperspectral camera based on a CMOS sensor to detect Transient
Lunar Phenomena and a GNSS receiver to support the future Lunar Navigation and Safety Systems(LNSS)

MOTHS constellation allows to obtain a complete lunar surface coverage within 37 days

MOTH mission allows to understand lunar phenomena and lay the groundwork for lunar explorationand colonization

Michela Boscia

MOTHS - 8th Mission Idea Contest

18Thanks for yourattention!
MOTHS TEAM
The 8° Mission Idea Contest
For Multiple Nano-satellites

20