Mission complete! The NASA-sponsored GASPACS (Get Away Special Passive Attitude Control Satellite) CubeSat deorbited last month, following a record-making 117 days in space.

We’ve previously blogged about GASPACS, so have a quick read to learn how a Utah State University team made it, and what its unique AeroBoom self-stabilising design is all about. It was excellent hearing from the team again to tell us how successful the flight had been.

Record-making mission

As well as being the first Raspberry Pi-powered CubeSat, GASPACS was also the world’s first completely undergraduate-created CubeSat. Members of Utah State University’s Get Away Special (GAS) Team are responsible for this record-making build.

On top of all these other firsts, GASPACS demonstrated the viability of a first-of-its-kind inflatable AeroBoom, which successfully showed that small spacecraft could self-stabilise in orbit.

Running smoothly through solar flares

Despite facing numerous potentially mission-ending challenges, GASPACS completed all mission objectives within the first 72 hours of deployment. These challenges did allow for a good run at the craft’s secondary mission — to test whether Raspberry Pi is a cost-effective and functional substitute for much more expensive space-rated flight computers.

Here’s what the GAS Team had to say about the scary bits of the mission and how Raspberry Pi kept everything going:

“While in orbit, GASPACS was hit with numerous X-class solar flares, the largest radiation bursts from the sun since 2017. These flares and other environmental factors quickly killed all other CubeSats deployed with GASPACS. GASPACS did take a beating… A concern for the team was how well the Pi would withstand such harsh radiation environments, but despite the failure of these commercial solar panels designed specifically for space, the custom safeguards designed by the team kept the $10 Pi running smoothly.”

Major X2.25 flare
Follow live on https://t.co/3Xxrvc3cpA pic.twitter.com/diPrVV6aEX

— SpaceWeatherLive (@_SpaceWeather_) April 20, 2022

What did the Raspberry Pi hardware do?

GASPACS was the world’s first CubeSat to use a Raspberry Pi as its flight computer. Raspberry Pi Zero W was responsible for all onboard computing, running Python scripts developed by the team. A secondary mission of the satellite was to “test the viability of affordable commercial microcontrollers such as the Raspberry Pi.” Looks like it all went well to me!

A Raspberry Pi Camera module visually confirmed the successful deployment of the AeroBoom. Eighteen hours after deployment, GASPACS transmitted the first photograph taken by the camera, confirming the AeroBoom was working properly. Many others followed, including some with Earth visible in the background.