Cubesense
Fine Sun or Earth Sensor
CubeSense are CMOS-imager based Sun and Earth sensors with a wide FOV, low power usage and high accuracy. CubeSense is available in two different formats, one being a PC104 sized board with two sensor heads featuring full redundancy on memory, and the other being a highly compact single sensor head with integrated electronics.
These sensors provide Sun/Earth measurements with <0.2° (3σ) accuracy over the entire FOV. The sun sensors are completely immune to albedo effects, making them highly robust and versatile. All sensors are calibrated in our state-of-the-art dark, clean, optics calibration room, using a sun-simulator and highly accurate rotation stage. CubeSense has flight heritage for a wide variety of missions and orbits.
Features:
Compatability
- The PC104-sized board conforms to the standard CubeSat form factor and is compatible with a wide range of available CubeSat subsystems.
- Supported communication busses included UART and I2C.
- Bus and power locations on the PC104 header are configurable to make CubeSense compatible with most CubeSat suppliers.
High-Resolution Image Sensors
- We utilize a high resolution 1.3 megapixel imager.
- The imger is also perfect to capture quick grayscale images of Earth.
Accurate Earth and Sun Detection
- Each CubeSense sensor is individually calibrated using an accurate calibration process in our state-of-the-art dark, clean, optics room with highly accurate rotation stage.
- Our Sun and Earth sensing algorithms have been refined to ensure robust performance even in non-ideal situations.
Specifications Summary
| CubeSense | CubeSense S | CubeSense N | |
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| Physical | |||
| Mass | 80g | 30g | 30g |
| Operating Temperature | -20°C to 70°C | -20°C to 70°C | -20°C to 70°C |
| Vibration | 14g RMS | 14g RMS | 14g RMS |
| Radiation | 24kRad | 24kRad | 24kRad |
| Electrical | |||
| Supply Voltage | 3V3 | 3V3 | 3V3 |
| Average Power | 150mW | 100mW | 100mW |
| Peak Power | 360mW | 200mW | 200mW |
| Communications | I2C/UART | I2C/UART | I2C/UART |
| Performance | |||
| Accuracy (3σ) | <0.2° | <0.2° | <0.2° |
| Update Rate | 1Hz | 2Hz | 2Hz |
| FOV | ~ 180° | ~ 180° | ~ 180° |