The University of South Florida (USF) plans to join the existing IUCRC for Advanced Small Satellite Technologies Research and Education Center (ASTREC) which currently is a multi- university center comprised of the University of Florida (lead institution) and North Carolina State University (NCSU). The research mission of the Center is to perform leading-edge research that is industry driven to produce technologically small satellites and components, which will be on-orbit validated and demonstrated.
The USF research site plans to focus on small satellite technology, expanding the research capability of the current center. Research needs have been defined in collaboration with potential partners representing a range of industries. The research team will emphasize system, subsystem and component level research. A strong multi-disciplinary team of researchers is included, representing mechanical and electrical engineering. Institutional facilities, organized in a number of research centers, are available to support the research described. The collaboration between USF and ASTREC will help advance the state-of-the-art techniques in small satellites as well as enhance the space related academic curriculum using realistic satellite projects. The research interests and experience of the USF team both augment and complement very well the research activities and competencies already represented at the center.
The technologies planned to be developed for small satellites, such as the compact, multifunctional RF devices, would have applicability in emerging commercial and military applications such as biomedical sensors and unmanned aerial vehicles, and could represent transformational technologies in low-power wireless communication. The inclusion of USF in the center would provide access to a highly diverse student body, which would add diversity to the overall center. A variety of NSF and institutional sponsored programs would be leveraged to support Hispanic and African American student involvement in the I/UCRC. Through the Alfred P. Sloan program, USF has 30 minority candidates in the Ph.D. pipeline. FSU has a long-standing, successful diversity program, which will support the planned efforts of recruiting and out-reach to under-represented groups. Specifically, the proposal includes highly commendable plans for involving students in prominent roles at the planning meetings. The proposing team also has a long-standing, highly successful collaboration with the Tampa Museum of Science and Industry that will be utilized in the proposed research site to reach out to K-12 as well as the general public.
Executive Summary Sponsors for the planning meeting included NSF; Harris Corporation; ASTREC; and the Universities of Florida, South Florida, and North Carolina A & T. The planning meeting was held on November 1-2, 2010, at Harris Corporation. The meeting was attended by five companies, two not-for-profit organizations, two Federal government agencies, and four universities. Seven other companies expressed interest in this initiative. Six proposed research projects were presented and subsequently revised as a result of feedback received from the participants. The revised research projects were then resubmitted to participants for their consideration early in 2011. At that time, a request was made for participants to commit to ASTREC membership so that a full Center proposal for a USF Research Site could be prepared and submitted to NSF in March 2011. This Small Satellite Technology initiative was an attempt to build on several existing industrial relationships and to develop new relationships. This attempt succeeded, but not to the extent desired or in the manner expected. In the former case, we found that industries with which we have ongoing relationships had already significantly extended themselves and were having difficulty even considering their traditional levels of support given the difficult economy. In the latter case, we found that the one-year duration of an NSF planning grant award is simply too short a period to obtain membership commitments from industry, especially in the sensitive, export controlled small satellite technology area. Even though a decision has not been made at the time of this report as to whether to submit a full Center proposal to NSF in September 2011, the planning meeting participants agreed that the USF NSF I/UCRC Research Site would have very broad impact in terms of knowledge capital – "ideas" – of the utmost importance to competitiveness. Knowledge capital, like financial capital, is highly mobile, with one major difference: being first-to-market can be immensely valuable to industry. The goal of the proposed USF NSF I/UCRC Research Site is to continually position member high-technology firms at the leading edge of scientific and engineering progress in small satellite technologies. Although the concepts of mini satellites and micro satellites have been experimented with for over two decades, stable and successful designs in the 50 kg class are few, and are virtually non-existent in the sub 20 kg range. Small satellites have not yet evolved to a fully mature technology, and much work has yet to be done in developing architectures, designs, and enabling technologies such as: Reconfigurable Multifunctional Architectures Energy Efficient High Performance Telecommunications Subsystems Smart Nanorobotics Subsystems Intelligent Energy Source and Storage Subsystems Robust Cooperative Satellite Communications and Internetworking Space Situation Awareness Subsystems These areas are the initial core research focus areas of the NSF I/UCRC USF Research Site. We also articulated a long term vision that went well beyond the areas mentioned above. We refer to basic research on the development of biomimetic materials with the ability of self-organization, self-healing, and self-replication by means of molecular nanotechnology. One objective in this exciting area is the combination of synthetic and biological materials, architectures and systems, respectively, for the imitation of biological processes for technological applications. The field of nanobiotechnology is in its infancy and is regarded as one of the most promising research fields for the future and will surely become an important part of the small satellite research portfolio. Acknowledgements A large number of individuals are to be thanked for the time and effort that they gave to this initiative, the obvious group being the USF project team leaders and their teams. In addition to these individuals there were many other contributors, not so obvious, but equally as important and crucial to the effort. In this group, we want to gratefully acknowledge the support provided by the Dean of the USF College of Engineering, John Wiencek; Director of the USF Nanotechnology Research & Education Center, Ashok Kumar; and ASTREC Director and Co-Director, Norman Fitz-Coy of the University of Florida and Bill Edmonson of North Carolina A & T State University, respectively. The NSF individuals that attended the planning meeting, Babu DasGupta, Kevin Simmons, and Vida Scarpello were highly professional and helped guide the discussions along essential and productive avenues. Harris Corporation and, in particular, Jay Kralovec are to be warmly thanked for hosting the planning meeting in the excellent surroundings of their Customer Briefing Center in Melbourne, FL. Draper Laboratory and, in particular, Len Polizzotto and Jana Schwartz are to be thanked for making Draper’s presence possible and for helping with the arrangements for our truly distinguished speaker, Bill Nead of the NRO. Last, but most certainly not least, most of what happened would not have happened in the correct manner if not for the excellent executive planning skills of Ms. Dena Chastain of the USF College of Engineering.
