GPS World

Tag: small satellites

  • Xona’s private GNSS satellite passes pre-launch testing

    Xona’s private GNSS satellite passes pre-launch testing

    Xona has completed environmental testing for its upcoming demo mission, a significant step towards realizing its high-performance commercial navigation system

    Xona Space Systems announced that their first in-space demonstrator has been delivered to Spaceflight Inc. for final integration after successfully completing testing and is scheduled for launch on SpaceX’s Transporter 5 in May.

    Xona is an aerospace startup developing a precision navigation and timing system in low Earth orbit. It plans to build an independent high-performance satellite navigation and timing system to meet the needs of intelligent systems.

    Xona’s first demonstration mission successfully completed testing at Experior Laboratories and prepares for launch on a Falcon 9 in May. (Photo: Xona)
    Xona’s first demonstration mission successfully completed testing at Experior Laboratories and prepares for launch on a Falcon 9 in May. (Photo: Xona)

    Satellite navigation systems such as GPS and Galileo are in the domain of major governments (and free to users). Xona said it is part of the new commercialized space movement, using it to bring benefits to satellite navigation and timing.

    Xona Space is launching Huginn, the first of two missions, demonstrating the capability of its Pulsar constellation. Pulsar’s architecture uses small, powerful satellites in low Earth orbit, more than 20 times closer to Earth than GPS satellites, which are in medium Earth orbit.

    Pulsar is planned to deliver high-performance navigation and timing services by combining security and signal designs with Xona’s patent-pending distributed atomic-clock architecture to enable robust precision navigation services from low-cost satellites. Its precision LEO positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) service leverages advances in small satellite technology to provide users with a secure and robust alternative to traditional GNSS.

    Xona’s system architecture utilizes the efficiency of small satellites to provide an affordable global system with more than 10 times better accuracy and 100 times better interference mitigation than legacy systems, the company claimed

    Huginn will transmit the first precision navigation signals from a LEO spacecraft, designed to test and validate the core software and hardware technology that Xona has developed for Pulsar. The mission will also demonstrate the functionality of end-user equipment on Earth and supporting ground systems.

    Huginn is now going through final integration with Spaceflight in preparation for launch on the scheduled Transporter 5 mission in May.

    “We’re thrilled that Huginn has successfully completed its very rigorous test campaign in preparation for launch and are incredibly proud of the Xona team for achieving such a critical milestone,” said Brian Manning, CEO of Xona. “Through this process, we learned a massive amount and will be incorporating these lessons into our second demo mission as well as the production satellites.”

    Following the Launch of Huginn, the Xona team will shift focus to the second demonstration mission as well as the development of the Block I Pulsar system.

    The final Pulsar constellation will consist of several hundred LEO satellites, delivering secure and robust precision PNT services designed to meet the needs of advanced applications such as self-driving cars, precision agriculture and construction, augmented reality, critical infrastructure, and many others.

    “It is inspiring to see what this team has been able to achieve going from a blank slate to orbit in less than a year from the time we completed our ground-based prototype testing,” Manning said. “This is a huge step in the development and deployment of our Pulsar constellation, and we’re looking forward to a very exciting year here at Xona.”

    Xona is backed by Seraphim Space Investment Trust (LSE:SSIT) and MaC Venture Capital, with participation from Toyota Ventures, Daniel Ammann (co-founder of u-blox), and Ryan Johnson (former CEO of BlackBridge, operator of the Rapideye constellation). Follow-on investors also include 1517 Fund and Stellar Solutions.

  • Honeywell debuts MEMS sensor to help small sats navigate

    Honeywell debuts MEMS sensor to help small sats navigate

    The HG4934 Space Rate Sensor is compared in size to a typical smartphone. (Photo: Honeywell)
    The HG4934 Space Rate Sensor is compared in size to a typical smartphone. (Photo: Honeywell)

    New, smaller sensors provide high-performance navigation at a low cost with less power consumption, company said.

    Honeywell has unveiled a new rate sensor to help small satellites navigate increasingly crowded orbits above the Earth’s surface. The new micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS)-based product provides low cost and power consumption in a smaller size than previous Honeywell offerings, while maintaining high performance levels. It is suitable for customers building smaller and lower-cost satellites, according to Honeywell.

    Honeywell’s HG4934 space rate sensor is roughly the same size and weight (145 grams) as a baseball. Compared to Honeywell’s previous rate sensors, it consumes only one-fifth the electric power, is more than 32 times lighter, and is 60 times smaller. It also is more tolerant of radiation, a key attribute in space.

    “With this new sensor, our customers can build smaller, lower cost satellites that are just as capable and reliable as their traditional predecessors, which will allow them to field new satellite technologies like 5G telecommunications or high-bandwidth global Internet,” said Mike Elias, vice president and general manager, Space, Honeywell Aerospace. “Furthermore, the number of satellites is only increasing, which leads to more crowded orbits. It’s critical that our customers have highly precise navigation solutions to help prevent accidents, which could knock functional satellites out of orbit.”

    A space rate sensor, also known as an inertial reference unit or IRU, is an inertial sensor composed of three gyroscopes that work together to sense rotation rates. They determine an aircraft or spacecraft’s change in rotational attitude over time and allow it to move from one location to another without using any external information. It can also serve as a backup solution to provide redundancy if other navigation systems fail.

    Celestial navigation options like star trackers are a popular method of obtaining pointing directions for satellites and spacecraft. This form of navigation uses angular measurements between objects in space (stars, planets, etc.) and the horizon to calculate location. However, sometimes these star trackers are blinded by the sun or affected by thruster gases. In this case, Honeywell’s HG4934 can act as a secondary method of attitude determination.

    Honeywell’s HG4934 Space Rate Sensor is available now for commercial, defense, and science applications. The first deliveries to customers began at the end of 2020.