VMI Turnouts A VMI ALUMNI AGENCIES DIGITAL NEWSLETTER
October 2018
Keydets in Space: VMI & CubeSats By Scott Belliveau ’83, Communications Officer, Alumni Agencies
What measures 10 centimeters by 10 centimeters by 10 centimeters, can be built in a VMI laboratory and will provide cadets hands-on experience in the space industry? The answer is: CubeSats. And soon, cadets will have the means to research, develop and build them on post and watch them get into orbit, thanks to an $82,800 grant from the Jackson-Hope Fund that will fund the new Spacecraft Design Laboratory, led by Col. Joseph Blandino of the mechanical engineering department. CubeSats began as a way to introduce university students to the design and building of satellites and offering them the reward of seeing them fly in space. Now, although they still fly almost exclusively in the lower thermosphere, CubeSats have come into their own as research and commercial platforms. According to Blandino, the increasing interest in CubeSats marks a sea change in the approach toward satellite development. “In the past, the space community focused on large, multipurpose satellites that take years and cost billions of dollars to develop and build.” He gave the example of NASA’s Webb Space Telescope, which has been under development for 20 years and so far has cost NASA about $10 billion. “These are impressive machines, but if they fail in orbit, you have wasted enormous amounts of time, money and effort.” National security policymakers, Blandino pointed out, now realize that depending on a relatively small number of multipurpose satellites makes the U.S. military’s space capabilities increasingly vulnerable. If an enemy compromises 30 to 40 satellites, The Department of Defense would lose communications as well as what he terms “its eyes and ears.” CubeSats provide a means by which the military’s space assets can be distributed over a wider network of satellites, making them “more redundant, more robust.” Further accelerating the drive toward CubeSats is the rise of “commercial space,” including companies such as SpaceX and Blue Horizon that offer launch services, often using smaller rockets to boost smaller payloads into orbit. A block of a dozen CubeSats, which would weigh about 40 pounds, can be launched – often, according to NASA, as auxiliary payloads on
previously planned missions – for as little as $30,000. Contrast that to the $8,500 to $10,000 per pound it costs to launch a payload on a large rocket, such as a Delta V. These are motivators for the expansion of the use of CubeSats – and the establishment of the Spacecraft Design Laboratory at VMI. But, according to Blandino, the central reason to establish of the laboratory was not the “gee-whiz” nature of the technology, but a desire to add value to the education that cadets receive. “I can’t say there was a ‘struck-by-lightning’ moment when it hit me that VMI should establish this lab,” said Blandino. “It grew out of talking to hundreds of cadets, prospective cadets and their parents. From those conversations, I realized that, although VMI stands out from so many other schools in so many ways, we had to find a way to ensure that our cadets, our alumni, stand as people who are thoroughly prepared to be leaders in the field of engineering.” He continued, “Sure, we can say with all honesty that we have an excellent faculty. But other schools have great teachers, too. We can say that we have a demanding curriculum, but the fact remains that we teach courses like thermodynamics and materials much like every other school.” In the Spacecraft Design Laboratory, Blandino says, “cadets will gain invaluable practical experience in this rapidly expanding field by developing platforms to test what some see as ‘high-risk’ technologies.” When asked what he meant by “high risk,” Blandino explained that neither government nor industry will use anything in a high-value project that does not have “flight heritage.” “There are some exciting new technologies out there, but unless they can be tested in space, their development will be significantly slowed. CubeSats offer a low-cost way to develop and test high risk technologies.” In the short term, he sees cadets developing a ThinSat (a satellite that is around 10 cm by 10 cm by 2 cm) next year and, in two years, a CubeSat that will test either a deployable boom that is an essential component of solar-sail technology or a deployable solar array technology. His vision for the long term