F6-CAPSat: A Picosat for System F6 Adjunct Interfacing

Resources available through the System F6 cluster can greatly simplify a participating spacecraft"s design. Our proposal encompasses three innovations: (1) Common Application for Sensorcraft Missions (CASM), an application that will be installed on the System F6 cluster to manage the picosat/cluster interface; (2) Sensorcraft Application INTerface (SAInt), a common interface for connecting picosat sensors, imagers, and other representative payloads to the cluster capabilities via the System F6 communications link; and (3) F6 Common Application Pico Satellite (F6-CAPSat), a picosat with limited onboard capability that will demonstrate CASM and SAInt. CASM is a general application developed using the F6 Flight Development Kit standards that receives and routes ground commands and satellite data, operating on them or passing them to existing F6 functions as required to allow high-cost communications and data processing functions to be performed by the System F6 core cluster rather than the adjunct spacecraft. SAInt acts as a low-level data router on the adjunct spacecraft, minimizing required capability for the sensorcraft. F6-CAPSSat uses SAInt and CASM to access and exploit System F6 cluster resources -- namely ground communications and navigation capabilities -- and complete robust mission objectives that today require much larger and more complex satellites.