The piPLASMA is the World's First Space-Friendly™ CubeSat Space Flight and Weather Monitor unit intended for in-situ orbital and environmental measurements. The system consist of the full Langmuir Probe instrument electronics, Ion Plasma probe in Z+/- CubeSat side wall form factor, 3-axis AMR magnetometer, 3-axis MEMS angular rate sensor (gyroscope), solid-state low power Dosimeter/Geiger Counter in non-magnetic finish, ultra low power 15 channel CubeSat GPS L1 receiver with DROP (Dead-Reckoning Orbital Propagator), Active GPS Antenna module, including a set of two Magnetorquer rods to validate the magnetic field measurements and Coarse Attitude Control in X-Y plane, with drivers.

The unit can monitor the satellite tumbling rate in order of +/- 250 degrees per second in all three axes X, Y, Z, respectively. For cases where the tumbling rate is much less than several degrees per second, the magnetic field measurement can provide with a much more precise vector components granularity in order to post-determine the derivative of the angular range changes. The piPLASMA Evaluation Kit TM/TC Demo Software also calculates the Total Magnetic vector and can display it into the live feed graph as an example of derived in-orbit environment parameter product. To monitor the surrounding plasma density, the Langmuir Probe working in the Ion Saturation region with fixed negative bias is utilized to estimate the particle per cubic meter density causing the satellite braking forces. Radiation environment is monitored using solid state Dosimeter/Geiger Counter with actual Rate of measurements output (incremental counts per minute counter). Orbital parameters and degradation can be post-calculated from position, velocity and time information provided using the reduced minimum output GPS receiver data. Flight heritage optimized GPS firmware uses the SkyFox Labs' proprietary DROP (Dead Reckoning Orbital Propagator) algorithm to compensate for orbital regions affected by terrestrial jammers penetrating to LEO regions causing GPS signal outage as well as for signal fading caused by improper antenna pointing or satellite tumbling without the need for uplink data. 

The Telemetry Engine is ready to provide with the most important unit temperatures (Langmuir Probe core, gyroscope and magnetometer temperatures), input bus voltage and current, as well as the Active GPS Antenna preamplifier DC bias feed current sampling.

The Engineering Model (EM) with the same mechanical and electrical properties is available with software limitation to maximum velocity (500 m/s). Red Remove Before Flight Finish is applied to prevent interchange with the Flight Model unit.

PC/104+ CubeSat Connector Compatible Evaluation Kit and Telemetry & Telecommand Demo Software available!

Spaceflight is challenging. Get to know what Your Satellite is up to!