ARC 1 CubeSat

ARC 1, the Alaska Research CubeSat is a 1U CubeSat developed and operated by the Alaska Space Grant Program. The overall purpose of the mission is to provide students at he University of Alaska Fairbanks with hands-on experience in the conduct of a space mission. The objective of the mission is the in-space demonstration of the satellite platform for future use in operational flights. ARC 1 will test a low-power attitude determination and control system as well as a high-bandwidth communications system to evaluate these two critical systems for use on future spacecraft. A camera is installed on the satellite to deliver imagery of changing snow and ice coverage in the arctic regions and to provide the data to be downlinked through the communications terminal.

The attitude determination system relies on three-axis magnetometers to deliver information on the current magnetic field strength and vector for the actuation of 12 magnetic torque rods that are used for attitude control. Another payload hosted by the satellite is the Launch Environment Data Logger that is designed to characterize the launch environment within the Poly Pico Orbital Deployer to deliver data for future CubeSat missions on the environments that have to be tolerated during ascent. The system features vibration sensors that will deliver data with a 4kHz sampling rate. Accelerations and temperatures will also be measured from ignition until ten minutes after orbital insertion.