AGS8

Project Overview

AggieSat8 is a proof of concept mission that will advance a critical aspect of space operations that the Department of Defense (DoD) calls Space Domain Awareness (SDA). SDA is improved by tracking the position and determining the orbits of objects in space. The DoD relies on ground-based systems to do that, but AGS8 will attempt to track objects in space, from space. The primary payload is an array of Liquid Crystal Antennas (LCAs) that will detect signals emitted from a target satellite in space. The signal data collected by AGS8 will be downlinked to the ground and processed with the MUSIC algorithm. MUSIC compares the phase differences between the different antennas and computes a position vector pointing from AGS8 to the emitting satellite. This results in the ability of AggieSat8 to track the position of the target satellite from space. By taking multiple of these measurements, AGS8 will be able to characterize the orbits of the Iridium satellites it listens to. AGS8 will use the characteristics of the LCA array to shift the frequencies the array can listen to and repeat the experiment on a satellite transmitting at a different frequency. AGS8 will also utilize the LCA array to receive ground transmissions for communications purposes.