Antti Kestilä

Finnish Meteorological Institute

LUNINA is an in-situ navigation and communication node. Proposed LUNINA platform is designed to be a compact, independent, cost effective, robust, and location independent navigation beacon and communication relay on the Moon that can operate 24/7.

3D-printing, also known as additive manufacturing, has enabled the production of dynamically shaped objects often customized for specific applications. Many applications, such as sensors in the aerospace industry, have demanding mass and volume requirements or need to work in challenging environments that necessitate electronics to be protected. Th...

This article addresses the challenge of vision-based proximity navigation in asteroid exploration missions and on-orbit servicing. Traditional feature extraction methods struggle with the significant appearance variations of asteroids due to limited scattered light. To overcome this, we propose a lightweight feature extractor specifically tailored...

Auroras can be regarded as the most fascinating manifestation of space weather and they are continuously observed by ground‐based and, nowadays more and more, also by space‐based measurements. Investigations of auroras and geospace comprise the main research goals of the Suomi 100 nanosatellite, the first Finnish space research satellite, which has...

When a high-voltage charged tether is put into streaming space plasma, the tether’s electric field disturbs the flow of plasma ions and thereby taps momentum from the plasma flow. The effect is called electrostatic Coulomb drag. One application is the electric solar wind sail which uses the solar wind to generate interplanetary propulsion. Another...

Additive manufacturing (AM) has shown to be a promising method for creating high-performance plastic components. In space, harsh environmental conditions such as vacuum ultraviolet radiation and significant temperature changes cause the degradation of polymers and static electricity buildup on the surface of non-conductive components. This study ex...

Radio waves provide a useful diagnostic tool to investigate the properties of the ionosphere because the ionosphere affects the transmission and properties of high frequency (HF) electromagnetic waves. We have conducted a transionospheric HF‐propagation research campaign with a nanosatellite on a low‐Earth polar orbit and the EISCAT HF transmitter...

Auroras can be regarded as the most fascinating manifestation of space weather and they are continuously observed by ground-based and, nowadays more and more, also by space-based measurements. Investigations of auroras and geospace comprise the main research goals of the Suomi 100 nanosatellite, the first Finnish space research satellite, which has...

Radio waves provide a useful diagnostic tool to investigate the properties of the ionosphere because the ionosphere affects the transmission and properties of High Frequency (HF) electromagnetic waves. We have conducted a transionospheric HF-propagation research campaign with a nanosatellite on a low-Earth polar orbit and the EISCAT HF transmitter...

Many fields including the aerospace industry have shown increased interest in the use of plastics to lower the mass of systems. However, the use of plastics in space can be challenging for a number of reasons. Ultraviolet radiation, atomic oxygen and other phenomena specifically associated with space cause the degradation of polymers. Here we show...

MiniPINS (Miniature Planetary IN-situ Sensors) is a study to develop and prototype miniaturized surface sensor packages for Mars and the Moon. The study aims at miniaturizing the scientific sensors and subsystems, as well as identifying and utilizing commonalities of the packages, allowing to optimize the design, cut costs and reduce the developmen...

MiniPINS (Miniature Planetary IN-situ Sensors) is an ESA study led by the Finnish Meteorological Institute to develop and prototype miniaturised surface sensor packages for Mars and the Moon. The study aims at miniaturising the scientific sensors and subsystems, as well as identifying and utilizing commonalities of the packages, allowing to optimis...

The design, integration, testing, and launch of the first Finnish satellite Aalto-1 is briefly presented in this paper. Aalto-1, a three-unit CubeSat, launched into Sun-synchronous polar orbit at an altitude of approximately 500 km, is operational since June 2017. It carries three experimental payloads: Aalto Spectral Imager (AaSI), Radiation Monit...

The design, integration, testing and launch of the first Finnish satellite Aalto-1 is briefly presented in this paper. Aalto-1, a three-unit CubeSat, launched into Sun-synchronous polar orbit at an altitude of approximately 500 km, is operational since June 2017. It carries three experimental payloads: Aalto Spectral Imager(AaSI), Radiation Monitor...

The need for autonomous location estimation in the form of optical navigation is an essential requirement for forthcoming deep space missions. While crater-based navigation might work well with larger bodies littered with craters, small sub-kilometer bodies do not necessarily have them. We have developed a new pose estimation method for absolute na...

The on-board computers of a spacecraft handle telecommands sent by the ground, provide telemetry to the ground, process on-board data, and control the spacecraft platform and payloads. A spacecraft may have one or several on-board computers that handle different tasks. On -board software often makes use of specialized real-time operating systems an...

Space technology has been an early adopter of additive manufacturing (AM) as a way of quickly producing relatively complex systems and components that would otherwise require expensive and custom design and production. Space as an environment and long-term survivability pose challenges to materials used in AM and these challenges need to be address...

In this paper we will describe briefly Finnish Aalto-1 CubeSat mission and summarize the mission results achieved during first five months of the mission. The Aalto-1 is the first nanosatellite built in Finland and launched by Finnish consortium. The satellite project started in 2010 as a Aalto University student project, supported by consortium of...

The European component of the joint ESA-NASA Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment (AIDA) mission has been redesigned from the original version called Asteroid Impact Mission (AIM), and is now called Hera. The main objectives of AIDA are twofold: (1) to perform an asteroid deflection test by means of a kinetic impactor under detailed study at NAS...

In this paper, we will describe the Finnish Aalto-1 CubeSat satellite mission, the satellite status and the first in-orbit observations. The Aalto-1 satellite is designed by students is built by a consortium of universities and institutes. It is the first Finnish nanosatellite project and also the first satellite registered to Finland. The mission...

Operation of a small CubeSatin the deep-space microgravity environment brings additional challenging factors including the increased radiation environment, the significant contribution of non-gravitational forces to the satellite orbit, or the limited communication opportunities. These factors need to be taken into account in the form of modificati...

This paper presents an improved multi-objective particle swarm optimization algorithm for magnetometer calibration in spacecraft. The proposed algorithm combines scalar checking with novel rotation axis fitting objective and avoids the requirement for perfectly aligned measurement axis. The improved approach is designed to solve 12 calibration para...

Aalto-1, the first satellite built in Finland, is due to be launched during the first half of 2016. The 4 kg satellite has been designed and built at Aalto University and is based on the CubeSat standard. The satellite carries three payloads: a spectral imager (AaSI) by the Technical Research Center of Finland, a radiation monitor (RADMON) by the U...

As polar ice cover retreats due to climate change, economic and political interest in Earth's polar regions has increased. At the same time, however, environmental conditions in these regions remain hazardous, and any operations there require intensive remote sensing. Noting that remote sensing constellation missions targeting only certain regions...

Rapid development of Earth Observation technology and increasing awareness of global challenges has increased the need for lean and agile space missions and calls for a new generation of engineers to design them. Miniaturization of sensor technology and electronics has decreased the weight of a satellite, which has brought launch prices to the reac...

Small, less than 100 kg satellites are quickly becoming popular outside university projects. These types of small satellites are also being used as part of constellations. However, to be a part of these constellations they need orbital maneuvering and maintenance capability, and for this the currently available electric propulsion systems are overs...

The radio environment on the earth is heavily affected by manmade sources such as radio transmissions, radars, and the like. The effect is particularly strong at MF frequencies and below, since the signals can propagate large distances via ionospheric bounce. Terrestrial magnetometer measurements have long been used to predict the Kp index, which i...

In this paper we describe a light on-line documentation approach which was developed for a student satellite project, but is also applicable to wide variety of engineering related student projects. The proposed approach allows flexible schedules in student team, group work and collaboration, assessment of the results, accumulation of the experience...

Sun outages in satellite communication occur when the sun, a powerful broadband microwave noise source, passes directly behind the satellite (when viewed from Earth), causing the receiver with the beam directed towards the satellite to pick up the satellite signal and the noise from the sun. A new type of calculator was developed to accurately dete...

In this paper we present a hardware-in-loop (HIL) test setup and usage designed for high performance Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS) end-to end testing and validation for multi-payload Cubesat missions. The Aalto-1 mission requires accurate pointing of a miniature radiation monitor and a hyperspectral imager, and a 200 °/s spin-sta...

After a decade of experimental nanosatellite projects, the past few years have seen a growing trend of utilizing nanosatellites in more complex scientific and commercial missions. More complex nanosatellite missions typically involve longer target lifetimes, sophisticated instruments and complex ground operations. These missions can achieve lower c...

Finland resides in high latitudes, and as a consequence requires larger receiver antennas due to the signal from the geosynchronous satellite having a longer atmospheric propagation path, as well as Finland often being at the edge of the geosynchronous communication satellite footprint. This however narrows the beamwidth of the antenna and so in tu...

This work presents the outline and so far completed design of the Aalto-1 science mission. Aalto-1 is a multi-payload remote-sensing nanosatellite, built almost entirely by students. The satellite aims for a 500–900 km sun-synchronous orbit and includes an accurate attitude dynamics and control unit, a UHF/VHF housekeeping and S-band data links, an...

GPS receivers are increasingly used in nanosatellite applications to provide the means for autonomous and accurate navigation in orbit. However, many of the available nanosatellite GPS receivers consume a large amount of power compared to the available power budget. This can be a problem when the main science instruments have high power requirement...

This work presents the outline and so far completed design of the Aalto-1 science mission. Aalto-1 is a multi-payload remote sensing nanosatellite, built almost entirely by students. The satellite aims for a 500–900 km sun-synchronous orbit, and includes an accurate attitude dynamics and control unit, a UHF/VHF housekeeping and S-band data links, a...

This paper introduces the Aalto-1 remote sensing nanosatellite, which is being built under the coordination of The Department of Radio Science and Engineering of Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering. The satellite is a three unit CubeSat, and it will be mostly built by students. The satellite platform is designed to house several paylo...

In this paper we describe the Finnish Earth Observation nanosatallite project Aalto-1. The Aalto-1 i sa4k g student satellite, based on CubeSat standards. The satellite is designed to carry the world’s smallest remote sensing imaging spectrometer for Earth Observation and several other payloads.

Interstellar navigation poses significant challenges in all aspects of a spacecraft. One of them is reliable, low-cost, real-time navigation, especially when there is a considerable distance between Earth and the spacecraft in question. In this paper, a complete system for navigation using pulsar radio emissions is described and analysed. The syste...

To design within ten weeks with a group of nine people a mission, that establishes the existence of a subsurface ocean on Jupiter's moon Europa and characterizes it, before 2025 for less than 500M€ with single point failure of the spacecraft before operations.