LibreCube – Open Source Ecosystem for Space and Earth Exploration
Channel: British Computer Society Open Source Specialists
Date: 2021-05-21

Presented by Artur Scholz, LibreCube

LibreCube’s vision is to enable everyone to get involved in building systems for exploration of Earth and Space using open source hardware and software. We believe that discovering new worlds and getting scientific insights should be a matter to all humankind.

Without doubt, CubeSats have sparked a revolution towards access to space for students, radio amateurs, new-space start-ups, and space enthusiasts in general. In short, CubeSats have allowed a much broader audience to establish their own space projects.

Currently there are overwhelming many entities and people engaged in building CubeSats but still collaboration and knowledge exchange is at a minimum. There is almost no single academic institute that shares detailed CubeSat design information. Also, today’s CubeSat developers are mainly concerned with system integration; they purchase CubeSat equipment from different vendors and struggle with putting it all together. With all these products being largely incompatible and complex, CubeSat failures rates are accordingly high.

At LibreCube we are convinced that CubeSats provide an ideal opportunity to prove that things can be done differently, not only in terms of technology, but also on how to implement and conduct space missions. We do not object commercialization of CubeSats, but we favour an open market where more weight is put on collaboration than on competition.

LibreCube is resting on these three pillars:

Open Source: Everything we do at LibreCube is made available to the public as free and open source. And we only use free and open source tools; this way, really everyone can get involved and contribute!
Free and Open Standards: We rely on proven and tested standards for our system designs, with preference to standards from the space domain.
Reference Architecture: Defining a generic architecture of system of systems that have standardized interfaces makes it possible to combine and reuse elements for various applications.
In this presentation, you will be given an overview on some current LibreCube projects with examples on their utilization. You will also learn on how you can actively join LibreCube and what practical space engineering skills and knowledge you can expect out of it – next to a lot of fun!

During my time at university I have managed to realize two CubeSats missions, all the way from idea on paper up to orbit. Only later I understood that building CubeSats is fun, but even more so doing it collaborativly with an open source community. That is when I started the LibreCube Initative in my spare time a few years ago, which now has about 100+ supporters and 20+ space related projects.

I am employed at VisionSpace and working for ESA, supporting two interplanetary exploration missions: Cluster-II that studies the Earth’s magnetosphere and JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) to be launched in 2022.

librecube.org/people/artur-scholz/