CubeSat Kit

NASA's GeneSat-1 mission is proceeding well.

This 3U CubeSat uses the Microhard MHX-2400 2.4GHz transceiver that many CubeSat Kit customers plan to use in their missions.

GeneSat-1's 2.4GHz link is now operational -- you can read more about it at the GeneSat-1 Mission Status webpage.

With the help of Orbital Sciences Corporation, students at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia will launch their own CubeSat satellite in 2008 or 2009. You can read more about it here.

For the record, 1U CubeSats are still approximately 4 inches tall (not 25 inches tall).

In response to customer queries, we are adding helpful files to the Customer Download Area. The first set of files are a layout of the jumpers and test points on the Development Board, with default jumper positions shown.

Pumpkin's Dr. Kalman gave a presentation at TI's 2006 MSP430 Advanced Technical Conference that outlines how to use the MPS430's on-board peripherals in a manner that maximizes their possible performance by minimizing interrupt latency. This approach -- coupled with version 4 of the Salvo RTOS -- enables CubeSat Kit customers to run multiple peripherals simultaneously on the CubeSat Kit's MSP430 Flight MCU without the interrupt latencies that would normally cause problems in high-speed processes (e.g. receiving incoming serial characters).

The Stanford on the Moon (SOM) project is planning a 2010 mission to the moon -- the Stanford Lunar Analysis Mission (SLAM). This multi-facteted CubeSat-based is presented in detail here and may be of interest to others considering CubeSat missions.

For maximum compatibility with current PCs and laptops, CubeSat Kits now ship with the TI USB FET instead of the TI Parallel-Port FET. We've added a new Application Note AN-35 to the Pumpkin website that explains how to configure your PC so as to be able to use Rowley's CrossWorks for MSP430 with the TI USB FET. This Application Note also covers other FETs, such as the inexpensive Olimex MSP430-JTAG-Tiny USB FET.

Now that CrossWorks for MSP430 v1.4 natively supports the setting of Vcc on the TI USB FET, Pumpkin Application Note AN-34 is essentially redundant, but will be maintained for reference.

Pumpkin was present at the 20th Annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites August 12-17. Saturday and Sunday were dedicated to a CubeSat-specific workshop organized by Cal Poly University -- you can read our presentation here. Monday through Wednesday we received many visitors in our booth (#74), including a variety of CubeSat Kit customers, some of whom we met in person for the first time.

The winner of our iPod shuffle raffle is Daniel Kekez at the UTIAS Space Flight Lab in Toronto, Canada.

Clyde Space has won a SMART Scotland award, resulting in a grant worth up to £50k, to develop a high efficiency, plug-and-play power system and battery for CubeSats and minature spacecraft. The resulting development will be produce using the "CubeSat Kit philosophy" in order to keep the technology within the reach of typical educational establishments and other limited budget organizations. Read the Press Release.

More details and system specifications are available on Clyde Space's website.