Question 4 Project Description

0087-EX-CN-2018 Text Documents

General Atomics

2018-02-01ELS_204218

BACKGROUND INFORMATION FOR THE ORBITAL TEST BED (OTB) SATELLITE This document supports the General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) Orbital Test Bed Satellite FCC license. Date: January 2018 Document No.: OTB-DOC-000636-05 General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems 345 Inverness Drive South, Suite 100 Englewood, CO 80112 Tel: 303.790.0653 | Fax: 303.792.2386 DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Confidential and proprietary information of GA-EMS. All rights reserved.

OTB-DOC-000638-05 ODAR FOR THE ORBITAL TEST BED (OTB) SATELLITE January 2018 APPROVALS Prepared by: Scott Taylor, System Engineer Signed: Reviewed by: Will Thompson, Project Manager Signed: Approved by: Clare Martin, Director Orbital Solutions Signed: DOCUMENT REVISION STATUS Revision Nature of Changes Edited by Date Number 01 Initial issue for comment M Brown Aug ‘13 02 Incorporates updated spacecraft design M Brown Aug ‘13 information. 03 Incorporates change in frequency and update of T Murphy June ‘15 critical dates 04 Incorporates change in ground station selection S Taylor Jan ‘18 i All information contained in this document is proprietary and confidential to GA-EMS and shall not, in whole or in part, be reproduced or disclosed, or used for any purpose other than for which it is provided, without GA-EMS prior written consent. All rights reserved.

OTB-DOC-000638-05 ODAR FOR THE ORBITAL TEST BED (OTB) SATELLITE January 2018 Table of Contents 1 Applicable Documents .............................................................................................. 1 2 Acronyms and Abbreviations ....................................................................................... 1 3 Preamble .............................................................................................................. 2 4 Overview .............................................................................................................. 3 5 Satellite Description ................................................................................................. 5 6 RF Communications .................................................................................................. 6 7 Further Information ................................................................................................. 8 List of Figures Figure 6-1: Emission spectrum of S-band Low Rate Tx ............................................................. 7 Figure 6-2: Emission spectrum of S-Band High Rate Tx ............................................................. 8 ii All information contained in this document is proprietary and confidential to GA-EMS and shall not, in whole or in part, be reproduced or disclosed, or used for any purpose other than for which it is provided, without GA-EMS prior written consent. All rights reserved.

OTB-DOC-000638-05 ODAR FOR THE ORBITAL TEST BED (OTB) SATELLITE January 2018 1 Applicable Documents AD# Title Doc. No. Issue AD-1 GUIDANCE ON OBTAINING LICENSES FOR SMALL 13-445 March 15th, SATELLITES 2013 AD-2 Orbital Debris Assessment Report (ODAR) for the Orbital OTB-DOC- December Test Bed (OTB) Satellite 000638-05 2017 2 Acronyms and Abbreviations AFRL Air Force Research Laboratory CAD Computer Aided Design DAS Debris Assessment Software DSAC Deep Space Atomic Clock EELV Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle EOM End of Mission ESPA EELV Secondary Payload Adapter FCC Federal Communications Commission GA-EMS General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems HDRM Hold Down Release Mechanism HDRS Hold Down and Release System JPL Jet Propulsion Laboratory LANL Los Alamos National Laboratory LEO Low Earth Orbit MSA Modular Solar Array N/A Not Applicable NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration ODAR Orbital Debris Assessment Report OTB Orbital Test Bed PDM Power Distribution Module RF Radio Frequency SERB Space Experiments Review Board USAF United States Air Force 1 All information contained in this document is proprietary and confidential to GA-EMS and shall not, in whole or in part, be reproduced or disclosed, or used for any purpose other than for which it is provided, without GA-EMS prior written consent. All rights reserved.

OTB-DOC-000638-05 ODAR FOR THE ORBITAL TEST BED (OTB) SATELLITE January 2018 3 Preamble This document supports GA-EMS’ application for an experimental license [1]. General information on the Orbital Test Bed (OTB) spacecraft is provided in reference [2]. 2 All information contained in this document is proprietary and confidential to GA-EMS and shall not, in whole or in part, be reproduced or disclosed, or used for any purpose other than for which it is provided, without GA-EMS prior written consent. All rights reserved.

OTB-DOC-000638-05 ODAR FOR THE ORBITAL TEST BED (OTB) SATELLITE January 2018 4 Overview 4.1 Mission Concept of Operations The GA-EMS ‘Orbital Test Bed’ (OTB) satellite is a small LEO experimental satellite that will provide an in-orbit test bed for the experimentation and demonstration of a variety of scientific, research and prototype payloads, subsystems and equipment. These ‘hosted’ payloads are detailed in section 2 of this document. GA-EMS will make an experimental license application to the FCC to operate the OTB satellite and are providing this document (together with the related Orbital Debris Assessment Report (ODAR) ref [2]) as supporting evidence. The RF transmitter communications links required to operate the OTB satellite are reviewed in Section 6 of this document. 4.1.1 Launch Schedule & Critical Dates The OTB satellite is currently in development against the following launch schedule: Preliminary Design Review 18th September 2013 Critical Design Review January 2014 Flight Readiness Review November 2017 Launch June 2018 The spacecraft will operate in orbit for 2 years to allow data to be gathered on the effects of long term exposure to radiation on the experiments. Therefore GA-EMS will apply for a 2 year experimental license. 4.1.2 Launch Site The OTB satellite will be launched from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral AFS, 28° 24' 20" N / 80° 36' 18" W, using the SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch Vehicle, designation STP-2 for the US Air Force. GA-EMS is not sponsoring the launch. 4.1.3 Orbital Parameters The orbit will be a 720+/-18.5 km altitude LEO circular orbit of 24deg inclination. OTB has no means of altering the orbit into which it is delivered as it has no propulsion. 4.2 Earth Stations GA-EMS has completed selection of an appropriate ground station, which will be used for TT&C (transmit and receive) and payload data download. The selected primary groundstation location is in Pendergrass, Georgia, USA. Multiple backup stations are also listed below. 4.2.1 Primary: 5.4m Antenna – Pendergrass, Georgia, USA Location: 34.1747° N, 83.6719° W Site Elevation: 283 m Antenna Height above Terrain: 6.4 m Antenna Type: Parabolic Tracking Antenna Azimuth Range: 000 – 360 degrees Minimum Elevation Angle: 5 degrees downlink, 10 degrees uplink 3 All information contained in this document is proprietary and confidential to GA-EMS and shall not, in whole or in part, be reproduced or disclosed, or used for any purpose other than for which it is provided, without GA-EMS prior written consent. All rights reserved.

OTB-DOC-000638-05 ODAR FOR THE ORBITAL TEST BED (OTB) SATELLITE January 2018 Antenna Polarization: Right or Left Hand Circular Peak Gain: 38.1 dBi @ 2025 MHz Antenna Beamwidth: 1.9 degrees @ 2025 MHz 4.2.2 Secondary: 12m Antenna – Naalehu, Hawaii, USA Location: 19.0138°N, 155.6629°W Site Elevation: 378 m Antenna Height above Terrain: 20 m Antenna Type: Parabolic Tracking Antenna Azimuth Range: 000 – 360 degrees Minimum Elevation Angle: 5 degrees uplink and downlink Antenna Polarization: Right or Left Hand Circular Peak Gain: 45.9 dBi @ 2025 MHz Antenna Beamwidth: 0.8 degrees @ 2025 MHz 4.2.3 Secondary: 5.4m Antenna – Cordoba, Argentina Location: 31.52° S, 64.46° W Site Elevation: 691 m Antenna Height above Terrain: 6.4 m Antenna Type: Parabolic Tracking Antenna Azimuth Range: 000 – 360 degrees Minimum Elevation Angle: 5 degrees uplink and downlink Antenna Polarization: Right or Left Hand Circular Peak Gain: 38.1 dBi @ 2025 MHz Antenna Beamwidth: 1.9 degrees @ 2025 MHz 4.2.4 Secondary: 3.7m Antenna – Hartebeesthoek, South Africa Location: 25.8865° S, 27.7056° E Site Elevation: 1563.5 m Antenna Height above Terrain: m Antenna Type: Parabolic Tracking Antenna Azimuth Range: 000 – 360 degrees Minimum Elevation Angle: 5 degrees uplink, 3 degree downlink Antenna Polarization: Right or Left Hand Circular Peak Gain: 27 dBi @ 2025 MHz Antenna Beamwidth: 2.8 degrees @ 2025 MHz 4.3 Contact(s) for Interference Issues 4.3.1 Primary Will Thompson General Atomics EMS 345 Inverness Drive South, Suite 100 Englewood, CO 80112 Will.Thompson@ga.com Tel: 001 720 255 0909 4 All information contained in this document is proprietary and confidential to GA-EMS and shall not, in whole or in part, be reproduced or disclosed, or used for any purpose other than for which it is provided, without GA-EMS prior written consent. All rights reserved.

OTB-DOC-000638-05 ODAR FOR THE ORBITAL TEST BED (OTB) SATELLITE January 2018 4.3.2 Secondary Scott Taylor General Atomics EMS 345 Inverness Drive South, Suite 100 Englewood, CO 80112 Scott.Taylor@ga.com Tel: 001 720 545 0868 4.3.3 Secondary Rebecca Yoder General Atomics EMS 345 Inverness Drive South, Suite 100 Englewood, CO 80112 Becky.Yoder@ga.com Tel: 001 720 256 2590 5 Satellite Description The OTB satellite is an evolution of the ESPA compatible SSTL-150 spacecraft, first flown in 2007 for LANL (http://www.sst-us.com/downloads/datasheets/sstl_150-feb-09). OTB is an ESPA class spacecraft with four deployable solar panels. The spacecraft will be operated in a nadir fixed orientation for the mission duration and requires only seasonal attitude maneuvers to adjust for the position of the Sun relative to the orbit. For further general information on the OTB platform, see reference [2]. 5.1 Data Download All data generated from the various payloads are multiplexed within the OTB spacecraft and down linked via a single, high rate, S-band; 2.0352 Mbits/s data link to the ground station. None of the payloads separately radiate RF signals. 5.2 Spacecraft Link Sessions GA-EMS will require four 7-8 minute link sessions during launch and commissioning. The launch and commissioning phase will last for 75 days. Following launch and commissioning GA-EMS will enter the nominal operations phase. During the nominal operations phase GA-EMS will require one 7-8 minute link session per day for satellite TT&C and to download platform status information and payload data. A separate FCC application will be made for ground station operations. 5.3 Operations of Payloads No testing of the payloads listed in section reference [2] will alter the orbital, physical or RF characteristics of the OTB satellite from nominal during their testing, as such they should be regarded as ‘passive’ in operation. 5 All information contained in this document is proprietary and confidential to GA-EMS and shall not, in whole or in part, be reproduced or disclosed, or used for any purpose other than for which it is provided, without GA-EMS prior written consent. All rights reserved.

OTB-DOC-000638-05 ODAR FOR THE ORBITAL TEST BED (OTB) SATELLITE January 2018 6 RF Communications 6.1 Summary The OTB satellite RF transmitters, as references from the ground station, are: 1. A low rate; 38.4kbits/s; S-band transmitter to downlink platform status information to the ground station. 2. A high rate; 2.0352 Mbits/s; S-band transmitter to downlink payload data to the ground station (NOTE: there are two S-band transmitters onboard although only one is operational, the other is a cold redundant spare). For information the satellite uplink is a low rate, 19.2 kbits/s S-Band uplink from the ground station. 6.2 S-band; Low-rate 38.4 kbits/s transmitter The RF characteristics of the S band low rate downlink are as follows. Identifier S-Band Low Rate Tx Function: Downlink of satellite state of health – ‘platform data’ Necessary bandwidth: 70 kHz Operating Frequency: 2272.5 MHz Maximum Transmit Power: 24 dBm (0.25W) EIRP -11.5 dBW (70mW) Antenna Gain in main pattern lobe 0 dBi Modulation type: BPSK Polarization type: Linear-V Data Rate: 38.4Kbits/sec Out of band emission -29 dB relative to maximum, Figure 6-1 Emission Designator G-1-D 6 All information contained in this document is proprietary and confidential to GA-EMS and shall not, in whole or in part, be reproduced or disclosed, or used for any purpose other than for which it is provided, without GA-EMS prior written consent. All rights reserved.

OTB-DOC-000638-05 ODAR FOR THE ORBITAL TEST BED (OTB) SATELLITE January 2018 p dBm LRTx 38.4kbps 40 30 1 20 10 0 2-1 -10 -20 -30 -40 -50 -60 Start: 2.2724 GHz Stop: 2.2726 GHz Res BW: 500 Hz Vid BW: 1 Hz Sweep: 322.35 ms 15/06/2015 10:45:14 Atten: 35 dB FSV-3 Mkr Trace X-Axis Value Notes 1 LRTx 38.4kbps 2.2725 GHz 16.81 dBm 2-1 LRTx 38.4kbps -52.4638 kHz -24.87 dB Figure 6-1: Emission spectrum of S-band Low Rate Tx 6.3 S-band; High-rate 2.0352 Mbits/s transmitter The RF characteristics of the S band high rate downlink are as follows. Identifier S-Band High Rate Tx Function: Downlink of satellite payload data Necessary bandwidth: 3.26 MHz Operating Frequency: 2272.5 MHz Maximum Transmit Power: 37 dBm (5W) EIRP 7.8 dBW (6W) Antenna Gain in main pattern lobe 3 dBi Modulation type: QPSK Polarization type: Circular-RHC Data Rate: 2.0352 Mbits/sec Out of band emission -27.8 dB relative to maximum, Figure 6-2 Emission Designator G-1-D 7 All information contained in this document is proprietary and confidential to GA-EMS and shall not, in whole or in part, be reproduced or disclosed, or used for any purpose other than for which it is provided, without GA-EMS prior written consent. All rights reserved.

OTB-DOC-000638-05 ODAR FOR THE ORBITAL TEST BED (OTB) SATELLITE January 2018 Figure 6-2: Emission spectrum of S-Band High Rate Tx 7 Further Information 7.1 Related Frequency Filing Activity A previous frequency filing submission was performed for OTB under Surrey Satellite Technology US (SST-US), prior to the acquisition of SST-US by GA-EMS. The previous FCC submission file number was 0426-EX-PL-2015. 7.2 Exhibits Relating to FCC Form 422 – Question 4 Question 4: Is this authorization to be used for fulfilling the requirement of a government contract with an agency of the United States Government? If "YES", include as an exhibit a narrative statement describing the government project, agency and contract number. The OTB satellite will accommodate the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Deep Space Atomic Clock (DSAC) under JPL subcontract No 1468935. The website address describing the program can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdm/clock/ and the fact sheet describing the DSAC technology can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/DSAC_Fact_Sheet.pdf. 8 All information contained in this document is proprietary and confidential to GA-EMS and shall not, in whole or in part, be reproduced or disclosed, or used for any purpose other than for which it is provided, without GA-EMS prior written consent. All rights reserved.

OTB-DOC-000638-05 ODAR FOR THE ORBITAL TEST BED (OTB) SATELLITE January 2018 7.2.1 Contact Information for DSAC Primary Dr. Todd A. Ely PI/PM Deep Space Atomic Clock Technology Demonstration Mission Jet Propulsion Laboratory 4800 Oak Grove Drive, M/S 301-121 Pasadena, CA 91109-8099 Todd.A.Ely@jpl.nasa.gov Office: 818-393-1744 Mobile: 626-319-3478 Secondary Jill Seubert Mission Design & Navigation Deep Space Atomic Clock Technology Demonstration Mission Jet Propulsion Laboratory 4800 Oak Grove Drive, 329A Pasadena, CA 91109 Desk (818)354-4076 Cell (626)590-4981 Jill.Tombasco@jpl.nasa.gov 7.3 Exhibits Relating to FCC form 442 – Question 6 Question 6: Is this authorization to be used for providing communications essential to a research project? (The radio communication is not the objective of the research project)? If "YES", include as an exhibit the following information: 1. A description of the nature of the research project being conducted. 2. A showing that the communications facilities requested are necessary for the research project. 3. A showing that existing communications facilities are inadequate. The OTB satellite uses two RF transmitters as referenced from the ground station, which are: 1. A low rate; 38.4kbits/s; S-band transmitter to downlink platform status information to the ground station. 2. A high rate; 2.0352 Mbits/s; S-band transmitter to downlink payload data to the ground station. (NOTE: there are two S-band transmitters onboard although only one is operational; the other is a cold redundant spare). These transmitters are essential to the operation of the satellite and the retrieval of data from the various experiments onboard. They are not the objective of the research themselves. The Orbital Test Bed (OTB) satellite is a GA-EMS owned and operated small LEO satellite that will provide an on-orbit test bed for the demonstration of scientific, research and prototype payloads, subsystems and equipment. A number of hosted payloads are sponsored by external parties: 1) Deep Space Atomic Clock (DSAC) ― sponsored by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) under subcontract No 1468935 (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdm/clock/). 9 All information contained in this document is proprietary and confidential to GA-EMS and shall not, in whole or in part, be reproduced or disclosed, or used for any purpose other than for which it is provided, without GA-EMS prior written consent. All rights reserved.

OTB-DOC-000638-05 ODAR FOR THE ORBITAL TEST BED (OTB) SATELLITE January 2018 2) iMESA-R ― a space weather monitor built by the USAF Academy and sponsored through AFRL Space Experiments Review Board (SERB) (http://www.usafa.edu/df/dfe/dfer/centers/sparc). 3) Modular Solar Array (MSA) ― built by Vanguard and sponsored through AFRL Space Experiments Review Board (SERB). 4) Cremains – sponsored by Celestis, Inc. In addition, the GA-EMS primary payloads are: 1) FlexRx ― a new spacecraft RF receiver design. 2) Radiation Monitor ― a new spacecraft radiation monitor device. 3) Custom Experimental Solar Panel ― a new solar panel technology. All data generated from the various payloads are multiplexed within the OTB spacecraft and down linked via the single, high rate, S-band; 2.0352 Mbits/s data link to the ground station. None of the payloads separately radiate RF signals. GA-EMS will require one 7 - 8 minute RF link session every day for satellite Telemetry & Telecommand (TT&C) and to download satellite status information and payload data. This is the minimum practical to ensure spacecraft health and retrieve experimental data. The satellite will not radiate any RF signals at any other time. The spacecraft will operate for 2 years, although a number of payloads will operate for a shorter time and will be switched off as required. No testing of the payloads will alter the orbital, physical or RF characteristics of the OTB satellite from nominal during their testing, as such they should be regarded as ‘passive’ in operation. 10 All information contained in this document is proprietary and confidential to GA-EMS and shall not, in whole or in part, be reproduced or disclosed, or used for any purpose other than for which it is provided, without GA-EMS prior written consent. All rights reserved.


Document Created: 2018-02-01 16:49:53
Document Modified: 2018-02-01 16:49:53
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