CTE Mission: CubeSat
GIS and Remote Sensing Team's CubeSat Project
In a challenge to build technical skills for careers in space and beyond, the CTE Mission: CubeSat competition was taken on by our school's GIS and Remote Sensing team. After developing a project proposal for the competition, our team was awarded one of five finalist positions nationwide and challenged to implement our mission.
This website displays the CTE Mission: CubeSat finalists and their projects. Click anywhere on the screen to interact with the website.
Los Angeles City is home to thousands of people who are considered homeless and do not have easy access to any shelter to protect them against natural disasters. In addition, California is known to be a high-risk fire state with many devastating wildfires over the years. This being said, we came to the realization that there must be a portion of the homeless population that resides in these high-risk fire areas. Through this realization, we began our project to document homeless encampments within high-risk fire zones and determine if they are occupied or not by using infrared remote sensing.
This map was created and used by our team to determine the high-risk fire zones in the Los Angeles city area. The map is interactive and contains data enriched popups that display the name of the fire and information on homeless populations in the area that are shaded. This can be accessed by clicking the shaded regions on the map.
After determining our mission for this project, we set out to obtain a proof of concept. We wanted to be certain that the infrared camera would be capable of capturing the thermal images of the homeless encampments. To do this, we equipped a drone with an infrared camera and flew it over the homeless encampments in the Ventura Willougby Preserve. The flight was successful, and we were reassured that our camera would be able to pick up on any infrared signatures in the homeless encampments. A video of the infrared camera in action can be seen here .
This map displays the flight path of our recon drone and can be interacted with by using this link .
This is a still image of the infrared imagery shown in the video.
Since the reconnaissance flight was a success, we were ready to begin building our CubeSat. The components of our CubeSat were assembled by our team and our industry partners. Grace Brethren High School shared their CubeSat frame and advisor with us: Eric Tapper, a satellite engineer from General Dynamics. He mentored our team in engineering the CubeSat as well as constructing it. XinaBox and Arduino also sponsored our team with starter kits of their processors. With their assistance, our team was able to put together a robust and functional processor.
The pictures above show students working remotely at home building the XinaBox, the picture in the middle is our project partners' space lab at Grace Brethren High School, and the picture on the bottom right is of our final code checks before the flight.
Before conducting flight operations, we set out to determine a study site that was suited for our criteria and created a site suitability analysis, which can be seen below. To begin with, we wanted our study area to be within a 15-mile radius of our school to keep commuting distances short. This was achieved by adding a 15-mile buffer radius around the school (slide 2). Since our data must be collected from the air, we needed to take into consideration and map any FAA UAS controlled air spaces in our 15-mile buffer zone (slide 3). Next, we mapped open spaces (green areas) in which a drone or payload-carrying device could fly, and ruled out the open spaces which resided in controlled airspaces. (slide 4-5). After determining the open spaces in which we could fly, we determined which areas are considered to be moderate to high-risk fire areas (orange hexagons), and defined any intersecting open spaces within wildfire risk areas (slide 6-7). Running these geoprocesses identified the open spaces which met all of our criteria in purple. (slide 8).
This is the Site Suitability Analysis presentation that our team created. By clicking anywhere on the map, then pressing the faint arrows towards the bottom, the presentation can be advanced.
The Hansen Dam Recreation Area fit perfectly into our site suitability analysis except that it was in an FAA UAS controlled airspace. To solve this issue we decided to utilize a weather balloon rather than a drone. After setting up the CubeSat and mounting on the balloon, we began our first flight. This flight took place on April 28th, 2021 at 5:30 pm. The GPS on our CubeSat did not work properly so we improvised and used an app called Strava to map the path of the balloon during its flight. In addition to the GPS issues, the operations were cut short due to heavy winds which can be seen in this video . The launch can also be seen here .
These pictures are of our first flight during flight week on April 28th, 2021.
This map is the flight path of our first flight in the Hansen Dam Recreational Area and is interactive. The map was created by using an app called Strava and can be interacted with here .
To further improve our data, we returned to the Hansen Dam Recreational Area for a second flight. We followed the same process as the last flight but decided to attach a phone which was recording GPS coordinates on Strava to the CubeSat payload. This provided us with more accurate data of the flight path and GPS coordinates of each image. The second flight took place on May 7th, 2021 at 7:30 pm. Surprisingly, during our second flight, a wildfire had started which caused us to limit our flight time and elevation as it may have interfered with any air support which was on hand to aid in the containment of the fire.
These pictures are of our second flight's launch on May 7th, 2021.
This map was created using the geoprocessed data from our second flight. The flight path is illustrated by the white line with yellow pins; zooming in reveals 30 square foot tessellations on the map. The red squares on the map represent coordinates where thermal camera readings were at least 15% warmer than the ambient temperature. These represent locations of homeless encampments.
This map of our second flight is interactive by clicking anywhere on the screen. At the top of the map, there is a button for bookmarks. Click on "Homeless Camps" in the bookmarks section to see pixels that are 15 percent over the ambient temperature of the area that indicates a homeless camp. If the map does not zoom in enough for the green layer with squares to show when clicking the bookmark, do it manually.
These are pictures of the homeless encampments that we studied during our flights.
This map is of the same flight but displays the elevation change of our weather balloon during its flight. The lighter the shade of purple, the lower the balloon was during its flight. This data helped us determine the distance our camera could see during different times in its flight as we knew its FOV which was 55 degrees.
This is a map of our second flight's elevation data and is interactive by clicking anywhere on the screen. The elevation decreased as we approached our study area because we had to lower the payload so it would not interfere with any of the fire response helicopters that were flying in the area.
These calculations were done by our team by utilizing the elevation data from the previous map and the known FOV degree of the camera to determine the distance the camera could see during the flight.
These images are of the fire that occurred during our second flight.
Once our data had been visualized using ArcGIS maps, we reached out to Fire Captain Steven Marotta of the Los Angeles Fire Department and shared our results. He applauded the focus of the project, stating that homeless people in the Hansen Dam were very difficult to locate due to the dense vegetation. He also had the following to say about the utility of our project:
For the Fire Department, this type of intelligence will help us to focus rescue and evacuation of homeless during vegetation fires. The other benefit is that it will help us to locate patients during EMS incidents. Being that my wife is a police officer, she also provided some insight to how it would benefit them. Knowing where the homeless encampments are through aerial mapping will keep them focused on areas to pinpoint any homeless suspects. It will save time!
After completing our mission and submitting a flight report, our team was given the opportunity to conduct an experiment in a microgravity rocket. This present unique challenges because the scope of our project needs to be vastly adjusted. Our thermal cameras do not have high enough resolutions to function from space, and it will require ingenious engineering to fit the necessary hardware in a one-cubic-foot frame. However, with the knowledge and experience we gained over the course of this project, our team is prepared and eager to take the next step.
The rockets above are from a bluShift, an aerospace company which will be sending our designed experiment into space.
