OMBRA LLC — Department of Defense STTR Phase I: AF21S-TCSO1

Description

Ombra, a Florida based Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) will investigate the feasibility of a CubeSat Control System (CS2) utilizing a CubeSat hosted, active debris removing tether control system for On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (OSAM) applications. CS2 will analyze the dynamics of a tethered system with a mathematical carefully selected and tailored after preliminary literature review and model-based systems-based engineering in Phase I. The attitude determination control system (ADCS) of CS2 will be developed to compensate for the disturbance forces caused by the momentum shift in deploying the tether and ensure that the reaction wheels possess sufficient toque and momentum capabilities to successfully keep the proposed CubeSats in the C-Series in the most effective swarming configuration. OSU will be placed on subcontract with Ombra for the proposed effort, specifically Dr. Lisa Fiorentini, head of the Masters Students Electrical and Computer Engineering Laboratory of OSU. Dr. Fiorentini’s expertise in the design of control systems for aerospace vehicles will be leveraged to provide a novel tethering solution in the government and commercial markets that does not currently exist. CS2 will be a 5-month feasibility study to determine the initial design of an active deployment tether control system, appropriate mathematical models, formulation of preliminary control-algorithms more controlling tether orientation, and suggested methods of simulation for Phase II.