Patrick Stakem

This book is an introduction to Cubesats, those popular and relatively inexpensive modular spacecraft that are upending the aerospace world. They have been built and deployed by colleges and Universities around the world, as well as high schools and elementary schools, even individuals. This is because Cubesats are modular, standard, and relatively low cost. The expensive part is the launch, but that is addressed by launch fixtures compatible with essentially ever launch on the planet. Although you may not have much of a choice in the orbit.At Capitol Technology University, where the author teaches, there is an ongoing Cubesat Project that will receive a free launch from NASA in late 2017, based on an open competition.Student Cubesat Projects are usually open source, may be world-wide in scope, and collaborative.At the same time, professionals in aerospace have not failed to consider the Cubesat architecture as an alternative for small-sat missions. This can reduce costs by one or two orders of magnitude. There are Cubesats on the International Space Station, and these can be returned to Earth on a resupply mission. There is a large "cottage industry' developed around the Cubesat architecture, addressing "professional" projects with space-rated hardware. NASA itself has developed Cubesat hardware (Pi-Sat) and Software (cfs).Cubesats are modular, built to a standard, and mostly open-source. The downside is, approximately 50% of Cubesat missions fail. We hope to point out some approaches to improve this. If you define and implement your own Cubesat mission, or work as a team member on a larger project, this book presents and points to information that will be valuable. Even if you never get your own Cubesat to orbit, you can be a valuable addition to a Cubesat or larger aerospace project. Shortly, two NASA Cubesats will be heading to Mars. The unique Cubesat architecture introduces a new Paradigm for exploring the many elements of our Solar System. Best of luck on your mission.

This book discusses the application of Cubesat Clusters, Constellations, and Swarms in the exploration of the solar systems. This includes the Sun, the 8 primary planets and Pluto, many moon, the asteroid belt, comets, the ring systems of the four gas giants, and comets. There is a lot to explore. U.S. Spacecraft have been to all of the planets in the solar system. Although the planets (and Pluto) have been visited by spacecraft, Earth's moon has been somewhat explored, and many of the other planets' moons have been imaged, there is a lot of "filling in the blanks" to be done. Here we explore the application of groups of small independent spacecraft to take on this role. Some of the enabling technology for cooperating swarms is examined. Missions to Mars and beyond are lengthy and expensive. We need to ensure that we are delivering payloads that will function and return new data. The tradeoff is between one or two large traditional spacecraft, and a new concept, a large number of nearly identical small spacecraft, operating cooperatively. Necessarily, the Technology Readiness Level of this approach must be proven in Earth orbit, before the resources are allocated to extend this approach to distant locations. Decades of time, and hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake. The big picture is, Cubesats are not just secondary payloads anymore, They may be small, but a lot of them together can accomplish a lot. We'll discuss the technologies to make this happen.

This book covers the topic of Cubesat control centers. We'll take a look at the historical development of satellite control centers, and explain how new technology has vastly simplified the approach. The book will suggest several open source options, not only for the control center, but for the entire ground segment. We'll disucss the various functions that a Cubesat Control Center does, and where to find software packages to implement those functions. As technology advances, we have a better basis for Cubesat control centers, as well as cheaper yet more capable hardware, and better and more available software. With the proliferation of inexpensive Cubesat projects, colleges and universities, high school, and even individuals are getting their Cubesats launched. They all need control centers. For lower cost missions, these can be shared facilities. Communicating with and operating a spacecraft in orbit or on another planet is challenging, but is an extension of operating any remote system. We have communications and bandwidth issues, speed-of-light communication limitations, and complexity. Remote debugging is a always a challenge. The satellite control center is part of what is termed the Ground Segment, which also includes the communication uplink and downlink. The control center generates uplink data (commands) to the spacecraft, and receives, processes, and archives downlink (telemetry) data. The spacecraft is usually referred to as the space segment. The spacecraft usually consists of a "bus", the engineering section, and the payload, either a science instrument package or a communications package. Satellite busses can be "off-the-shelf," leading to economies of scale.The concept of the "Contropl Center as a Service" will be introduced, showing how the control center function can be implemented in the cloud. Issues of control center security will be discussed.

This book discusses the topic of Graphics Processing Units, which are specialized units found in most modern computer architectures. Although we can do operations of graphics data in regular arithmetic logic units (ALU's), the hardware approach is much faster, Just like for floating pount arithmetic, specialized units speed up the process. We will discuss the applications for GPU's, the data format, and the operations they perform. These specialized units are the backbone to video, and to a large extent audio processing in modern computer architectures. The GPU is a specialized computer architecture, focused on image data manipulation for graphics displays and picture processing. It has applications far that. The normal ALU, Arithmetic-Logic Unit, in a computer does the four basic math operations, and logical operations on integers. These integers are usually 32 or 64 bits at this time. The GPU greatly enhances the spped of 3D graphics. GPU's find application in arcade machines, games consoles, pc's, tablets, phones, car dashboards, tv's and entertainment systems. First, we'll look at the CPU, and the operations it performs on data. The CPU is fairly flexible on what it does, because of software. You can implement a GPU in software, but it won't be very fast. There's a similar co-processor, the floating point unit (FPU) that operates on specially formatted data. You can implement the floating point unit in software, actually, you can probably download the library, but it won't be as fast as using a dedicated piece of hardware. We'll first discuss integer data format, and operations on those data. The "L" part of ALU says we can also do logical (not math) operations on data. GPU's can process integer and floating point data much faster than a cpu, if it is presented in the right format. They don't have all the general purpose features of ALU's, but they can contain 100 cores or more. This has lead to the employment of large numbers of GPU's as the basis for the current generation of Supercomputers.

This book discusses the application of Cubesats in the exploration of our solar systems. Including the Sun, the eight primary planets and Pluto, many moons, the asteroid belt, comets, and the ring systems of the four gas giants, there is a lot to explore. Although the planets (and Pluto) have been visited by spacecraft, Earth's moon has been somewhat explored, and many of the other planets' moons have been imaged, there is a lot of "filling in the blanks" to be done. Here we examine the application of swarms of small independent spacecraft to take on this role. Some of the enabling technology's for cooperating swarms is examined. Almost every Cubesat sent into space to this point has gone into Earth orbit, and is either there still, or has reentered the atmosphere. It's a big solar system, and there's a lot we don't know about it. Additionally, all Cubesats have launched as ride-along payloads. There are two approaches for using Cubesats for exploration away from Earth. One uses the demonstrated technology of solar sailing, and missions using this approach are being implemented. Another uses a large carrier-mothership, loaded with hundreds or Cubesats. This is sent to a destination. achieves orbit, and dispenses the Cubesats, providing a communications link with Earth. JPL is postulating this type of mission in the 2020's. They baseline a dormant cruise duration of 100-2200 days, followed by a Cubesat life of 1-7 days. Prior to that, the most likely scenario is a traditional exploration mission with some tag-along Cubesats. The next step beyond that is to make a swarm of Cubesats the primary payload.

This book discusses .the use of microprocessors in space missions, from the earliest 4-bit machines to the most current 64-bit implementations. It covers the transition from monolithic processors with extensive glue logic, to IP cores instantiated in FPGA's. It gives the high-lights of the microprocessors sent and being sent into space, and the problems of sustaining their operations there. Microprocessors orbit the earth, sit on other planets, and have left the Solar system into interstellar space. They are the key components for spacecraft autonomy, and for collecting, storing, and returning the volumes of information that we receive from off-planet sources. Spacecraft microprocessors are a special subset of embedded computers. Most spacecraft include 10's ro 100's of processors, doing tasks such as attitude and orbit control, power monitoring and control, telemetry formatting and command handling, data storage management, and instrument control. Without these microprocessors, the amount that we know about our neighboring planets and the intervening space would be vastly limited. Early flight computers were custom designs, but cost and performance issues have driven the development of variants of commercial chips. Aerospace applications are usually classic embedded applications. Space applications are rather limited in number, and, until recently, almost exclusively meant NASA, ESA, or some other government agency. Flight systems electronics usually require MIL-STD-883b, Class-S, radiation-hard (total dose), SEU-tolerant parts. Specific issues of radiation tolerance are disucssed. Class-S parts are specifically for space-flight use. Because of the need for qualifying the parts for space, the state-of-the-art in spaceborne electronics usually lags that of the terrestrial commercial parts by 5 years. The new Cubesat concept bring the idea of a personal satellite within the reach of University Programs, and even for some individuals.Processors used in aerospace applications, as any semiconductor-based electronics, need to meet stringent selection, screening, packaging and testing requirements, and characterizations because of the unique environment. Most aerospace electronics, and the whole understanding of radiation effects, were driven by the cold war defense buildup from the 1960's through the 1980's. This era was characterized by the function-at-any-cost, melt-before-fail design philosophy. In the 1990, the byword was COTS -- use of Commercial, Off-The-Shelf products. Thus, instead of custom, proprietary processor architecture's, we are now seeing the production of specialized products derived from commercial lines. In the era of decreasing markets, the cost of entry, and of maintaining presence in this tiny market niche, are prohibitively high for many companies.

Personal Robots of the 1980's inspired hopes for the future. This was triggered by the R2D2 Robot of the Star War series, itself based on the three service droids of the early Science Fiction movie, Silent Running. At the same time, personal computers were emerging as affordable and easier to use. The excitement and the technology reached a tipping point. Before this time, robotics mainly meant large hydraulic units that manufactured cars. Now it came to mean personal companions. The expectations were limitless. It took, as it always does, longer than we thought. The initial units were termed pc's on pc's - personal computers on push carts by Nolan Bushnell. Robots up to this time built cars on factory assembly lines.Now, people were building them at home, using whatever level of technology was available. Devices succh as the Roomba vacuum cleaner and robotic lawn mowers emerged. But, the miniaturization of the compute elements and the sensors was not there yet. Remotely controlled (tele-robotic) Battlebots fought in arenas. It is far easier to get a working robot put together at home now, with most of the pieces available off the shelf, and inexpensive. Mobility platforms, including flight platforms, small embedded computer such as the Raspberry Pi and Arduino, and a full spectrum of small inexpensive MEMS sensors are widely available. But the pioneering work of at home robot builders made this all possible. It was an exciting time, and its getting better.

This book expands on previous works with new material, and discusses a specific topic of the Industrial Revolution in Western Maryland, the iron-making Industry. Starting around 1837, and ending early in the 20th century, the rich natural resources of the western portion of Maryland were used to produce iron, a necessary building block of the Industrial Revolution. By the 1870's Maryland was 5th in the Nation in iron production, and the facility at Mount Savage had rolled the first iron rail in the United States. The facility at Mount Savage, and the earlier one at Lonaconing were cutting-edge, state-of-the-art high technology research, development, and production centers. Essential Patents were issued. Mount Savage was a who's who of industrialization, invention, and technology vital to the nation. In the end, they missed producing the first true steel in the United States, probably by a few months. There were two major iron manufacturing sites in Western Maryland, both in Allegany County. Lonaconing was the first, and served as a model for the later Mount Savage site. Both were blessed by abundant supplies of raw materials. Both were handicapped by being located in the middle of nowhere. They addressed this issue by building transportation systems involving roads and railroads. Lonaconing was not successful in their timing, but Mount Savage was. By the time the railroad from Lonaconing was built, the furnace was out of production, and coal became the major commodity being shipped. Mount Savage not only built the first iron rails produced in the United States, they built a railroad with their rails to meet the B&O railhead at Cumberland. They went on to sell rail to the B&O so that road didn't have to keep importing it from England. Mount Savage went on to be a manufacturer of locomotives, producing maybe a hundred of their sturdy iron-workhorses. Lonaconing and Mount Savage both lie along Maryland Route 36, some 14 miles apart.

In the early 19th century, a 14-foot thick seam of bituminous coal referred to historically as "The Big Vein" was discovered in the Georges Creek Valley in Western Maryland. This coal region would become famous for its clean-burning low sulfur content that made it ideal for powering ocean steamers, river boats, locomotives, and steam mills, and machines shops. By 1850, almost 30 coal companies would be mining the Georges Creek Coal, producing over 60 million tons of coal between 1854 to 1891, with 5,000 men working underground. In the census of 1860, over 90% of the miners could read and write.The Town of Lonaconing was located centrally in the Georges Creek Valley, between Frostburg at the north, and Westernport at the south. Both towns at the extremes had rail junctions. There were plans to extend the C&O canal through Westernport. Lonaconing became the largest among the dozen or so towns along the Georges Creek, serving as a manufacturing center, a home for companies and miners, and a major retail center. At one time, residents had their choice of three rail passenger services, serving the town.When it was founded, Lonaconing was a model of Industrial Feudalism. Initially the workmen came from Wales, and, until recently, church services were conducted in Welsh.This is the story of the extraordinary men and company's who put together a small industrial empire in the middle of the woods in Western Maryland. They dug iron ore and coal, built a railroad, and formed towns and organizations that exist to this day. The iron furnace is preserved in a City Park, and the Silk Mill survives. Lonaconing now hosts a branch of the county library for the Georges Creek region.The author's ancestors came to mine coal and live in Lonaconing from Ireland during the Civil War.

This book describes two men whose careers intersected at the Mount Savage Locomotive Works in Western Maryland. T.H. Paul was Master Mechanic of the Works. But left to form his own business based in Frostburg. He focused on narrow gauge locomotives. His break with the Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad, owner of the Mount Savage Shops, was amicable. He sent business to Mount Savage, and they sent him business concerning narrow gauge and mining equipment, which they did not manufacture. Its was a win-win. When the Mount Savage Locomotive Works Catalog came out in 1889, Paul's engines were featured prominently.James A. Millholland had come to Mount Savage with his father, also James Millholland, in 1866. He worked at the Mount Savage Locomotive Works and the Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad, then for the Georges Creek & Cumberland Railroad.Paul's father was a Mill Wright, and Millholland's was a railroad man. Both Paul & Millholland became Master Mechanics of the Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad. And, both men contributed to the state-of-the-art in 19th century railroads, and both had patents granted to them. Both were key figures in the Industrialization that was taking place in western Maryland and the Nation as a whole in the 19th century.

The story of the Saturn rocket is the story of rocket development, started in Germany, and lasting through World War-II. The story of the Saturn-V moon rocket starts with the V-2 missile development and continues through the Redstone, Jupiter, and the Saturn-1 rockets. This was the work of the von Braun Team at the Army's Redstone Arsenal, later, Marshall Space flight Center, in Huntsville, AL. The three Saturn-1/Pegasus missions of 1965 provided critical information about the near-Earth micrometeorite environment, and confirmed the feasibility of the lunar missions. The missions also validated flight procedures and hardware. The Apollo test flights involved many of the NASA facilities, including Launch CompleX-37 at Cape Canaveral, Marshall, Goddard, and the Manned Space Center in Houston, as well as the world-wide network of tracking stations and ships. Chrysler Corporation built the Saturn-I boosters, to a NASA design. IBM built the flight computers. Fairchild built the massive Pegasus payload, with its expanding wings covered with sensors. In 1965, three of the Pegasus satellites relayed the vital data to NASA Earth stations concerning the micrometeoroid environment that the Apollo spacecraft and the astronauts would have to face. The Pegasus missions also carried boilerplate Apollo spacecraft for test purposes. The vehicle weighed over 1.1 million pounds at liftoff, and The massive first stage dropped into the Atlantic after its work was done. NASA carefully calculated the probability of the stage hitting the African land mass, and causing casualties. The Pegasus mission were a major engineering and scientific success

The era of the 16-bit microprocessor began in 1978 with the introduction by Intel of the 8086 and 8088 processors. Embedded controller versions of some of the general purpose cpu's were also added to the families. The 16-bit microprocessors were a follow-on to the previous 8 bit chips. They offered not only greater integer word size, but more address range, and faster operation than their predecessors. Initially implemented in multiple chips, the march of technology finally allowed these 16-bit machines to be a single chips design. Floating point hardware was developed for the 16-bit integer cpu's, and would later be incorporated into the same chip as the later 32-bit processors.At the same time, single-chip versions of some of the popular 16-bit minicomputers evolved. These included the DEC PDP-11 and Data Genera NOVA series. The 16-bit machines finally brought processing power to the desktop to begin to threaten the reign of the mainframes. Just imagine. A computer on every desktop. What would we do with that?

This book surveys the history and architecture of 8-bit microprocessors. We actually start with 4-bit microprocessors, look at a strange 1-bit processor, and look at 8-bit, then 12 bit micros. The 16-bit processors will be the subject of another book. Eight bit processors are still manufactured and used. This book is not an exhaustive view of the field, but the major players are covered. There is a review of computer architecture, binary math, and digital logic that can be skipped. The evolution of the 8-bit processors is a history of the advance of semiconductor technology from the first transistors, to the breakthrough of multiple transistors on a chip, the integrated circuit. A lot of this happened when the "Silicon Valley" of northern California was mostly known for its citrus crops. The tools that made all this happen were large mainframe computers with vacuum tube technology, punched card input, and memory drums with the staggering capacity of a thousand words. The growth of the integrated circuit shows what Gordon Moore observed was an exponential growth law: the complexity increased about every 18 months. Naturally, this growth rate is not sustainable forever. But, in the age of multi-core 64 bit microprocessor systems on a chip, so far, so good.Modern computers started out using relays and vacuum tubes, switching to mechanical relays for switching elements. The semiconductor revolution provided diodes for logic functions, and transistors for switching. As the technology allowed for putting multiple transistors and other elements on a single substrate, the integrated circuit began to be widely used. The complexity of the devices increased according to an exponential growth law, the technology feeding upon itself. This allowed for functions such as an arithmetic-logic unit to occupy one chip. Then, at around 4,000 transistors capacity, an entire 4-bit cpu that executed instructions. Not much later came the 8-bit cpu. Memory and I/O functions also benefited from the increasingly complex solid state-electronics.glossary, bibliography, and pictures are included.The author built an Intel 8080-based Altair 8800 computer in 1975. He went to the Big Computer Faire in Atlantic City, and saw two guys, both named Steve, from California, with a wooden-cased project that probably wasn't going to go anywhere commercially. His Aerospace career has revolved around support for space-based microprocessors and computers for NASA since 1971.Mr. Stakem received a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, and masters in Physics and Computer Science from the Johns Hopkins University. He has followed a career as a NASA support contractor, working at every NASA Site. He is associated with the Graduate Computer Science Department at Loyola University in Maryland, and the Whiting School of Engineering of the Johns Hopkins UniversityAnother book by the author discusses 16-bit microporcessors.

The Nineteenth Century saw a period of rapid technology development, as steam power was applied to many aspects of manufacturing and transportation. People's lives became better, old things could be done more cheaply or faster, and new things were enabled. At the same time, machinery displaced jobs and switched the economy from a focus on agriculture to a new focus on manufacturing. A new age was being born, and birth involves pain, disruption, and change. Steam technology relied on the extractive industries for coal, iron ore, and other materials. There was a seemingly limitless demand for the raw materials and finished products of the steam age. A huge number of jobs were created, and fewer farmers were needed to feed the population. Vast patterns of migration brought Europeans to the America to share the Dream. Britain was the first to go through the disruption of the Industrial Revolution, and British Technology was the model for the United States. The U.S. looked to Britain for "lessons learned" on canal, railroad, and factory technology. All over the country, enclaves of technology sprang up, centered around the abundance of raw materials, or the availability of cheap power and transportation, enabled by streams and rivers. The elements required for a successful technology venture in the Industrial Revolution were: raw materials, labor, capital, technological expertise, and transportation. The cost of transportation touches all the other aspects. In England, a good canal network allowed raw materials to be shipped for processing, or product such as pig iron to be shipped to users from an area where the material was abundant. Capital began to accumulate when manufacturing of goods on a large scale became possible. Capitalism, with wages, attracted large numbers of laborers to factory's and mines. Finally, a small cadre of engineers and practitioners made continuous improvements in processes and machinery. A master ironsmith was worth his weight in gold, because he could apply the processes and co-ordinate the labor to produce the desired products. Wales became the major supplier of iron making expertise. England became the major supplier of Capital. Europe became the major supplier of cheap labor. In New England, the Manufacturing centers such as Lowell in Massachusetts were built near streams. Facilities in New York used water powered hammers and blowing engines to produce machine parts from iron ore. The technology fed on itself. These machines were shipped by ocean-going sailing ships, shallow draft riverboats, and canal boats to remote locations where raw materials were plentiful. The Industrial Revolution pulled itself up by its own bootstraps - It enabled the cheaper transportation and more widespread distribution of not only capital goods, but also the means to produce capital goods. The earliest industrial activities in Maryland occurred in the East, and near water. In colonial times, raw materials were exported to England. Maryland exported pig iron. After Independence, the States controlled the manufacturing ventures, providing them with charters, the right to exclusive use of a stream of water, and the right to build roads across others' property. The artery for commerce was water. Massive amounts of trees were cut to keep the furnaces going. Since the finished product, pigs of iron, were heavy, the need for proximity to water transportation was obvious. The industry's developed where the raw materials were in close proximity to port facility's. In the Western end of the State, vast beds of coal and iron lay waiting to be exploited. The iron furnace facility at Lonaconing used coke from coal), not charcoal as an advance in technology. But Lonaconing suffered from a transportation problem, which would be solved too late to matter. The coke furnace technology made its way to Mount Savage, where the first iron rail in the US was made. Later 100 locomotives would roll out of the Shops.

Located near Frostburg on either side of the National Road, the sleepy village of Eckhart Mines was once a bustling industrial center of mining and railroad activity. Coal was discovered in Eckhart around 1814, during the construction of the National Road. This was convenient, as the coal could be moved to Cumberland by wagon, and floated down the Potomac River, when conditions permitted. The coal from Eckhart started the Maryland coal trade, in 1843.The Maryline Mining Company built the Eckhart Branch Railroad in 1845 to allow the coal from their mines to reach Cumberland, where the B&O Railroad was located, and the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal was heading. The railroad survived independently until 1870, when it became the Eckhart Branch of the Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad.The Author's Grandfather worked on the line as a locomotive engineer.This book covers the Company's and the Movers & Shakers who made the business work. It discusses in detail the equipment and facilitys of the early short line railroad, and its contribution to the B&O. The mines are discussed, as well as a major feat of engineering, the Hoffman Drainage Tunnel, which lowered the water in the mines, and allowed additional coal to be extracted.An extensive bibliography is included.

In 1755, Fort Cumberland was at the cusp of three empires: the British, the French, and the Iroquois. It was the westernmost outpost of the British Empire in North America. Built at the confluence of Will's Creek and the Potomac by Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland Militia, the fort became untenable after the Braddock defeat, and the western boundary of Empire was pulled back to the safety of Fort Frederick. West of the fort was disputed territory, leading into New France. The Native American peoples wanted both the French and the British to go home. They began to organize into large federations of tribes to better deal with the invaders from across the seas. Fort Cumberland was attached by Indian forces, but relieved. It saw no action in the Revolutionary War, but served as the staging area for troops deployed under Washington in the Whiskey Rebellion in Western Pennsylvania. This book has an extensive set of references to material relevant to the history, construction, and use of Fort Cumberland. It outlines the historical context of the Fort.

This book gives an overview of Multicore architectures, how they derive from multiprocessors, and illustrates the new applications they enable. A multicore processor has multiple cpu and memory elements in a single chip. Being on a single chip reduces the communications times between elements, and allows for multiprocessing. Advances in microelectronics fabrication techniques lead to the implementation of multicores for desktop and server machines around 2007. It was becoming increasingly difficult to increase clock speeds, so the obvious approach was to turn to parallelism. Currently, in this market, quad-core, 6-core, and 8-core chips are available. Besides additional cpu's, additional on-chip memory must be added, usually in the form of memory caches, to keep the processors fed with instructions and data. There is no inherent difference in multicore architectures and multiprocessing with single core chips, except in the speed of communications. The standard interconnect technologies used in multiprocessing and clustering are applied to inter-core communications. Multicore technology is mainstream, and enables a vast application space.