NewSpace Systems (NSS), a South Africa-based multinational spacecraft components and sub-systems manufacturer, with branches in North America, Europe, and Oceania, is a pioneer in the area of Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) products. NSS is supporting the majority of the commercial spacecraft manufacturers, including several blue-chip companies and constellations of 500 satellites and more. It is currently exporting to 27 countries across 6 continents.
NSS offers access to flight proven off-the-shelf GNC products, and also develop custom solutions. In space failure is not an option and therefore manufacturing is done by technicians who closely follow the rigorous ECSS standards and are certified by the European Space Agency (ESA). NSS’s state-of-the-art cleanroom facilities comply with the ISO 14644-1 standard, with their Quality Management System ISO 9001:2015 certified.
Some of the products by NSS are:
Sun Sensors: A sun sensor determines a spacecraft’s orientation with respect to the sun. The front surface of the NewSpace Systems (NSS) NFSS-411 sensor is a synthetic sapphire window with a reflective metal coating beneath. Slits are etched in the metal and sunlight passes through them and through an optical filter onto a sensor. The charge on the photo-sensors are read by the microcontroller which processes the image and computes the sun vector. The vector and other telemetry is returned to the spacecraft through the serial interface.
Magnetorquers: Magnetorquers rods are a method of controlling the attitude of a spacecraft either directly, by interacting with the local Earth’s magnetic field or, more usually, in combination with reaction wheels. This secondary method allows for the dumping of excess momentum in the reaction wheels without the need for a complex propulsion system. The NSS magnetorquer rods use a magnetic alloy rod which produces an amplification effect over an air cored magnetorquer. This allows a system that utilizes less power and is less susceptible to magnetic torque variations due to temperature. Each rod is typically bifilar wound for redundancy, or the windings can be activated together to increase the torque produced.
Magnetometer: The NSS tri-axial magnetometer utilises Anisotropic Magneto-Resistive (AMR) sensors which are co-located with offset compensating circuitry. The offset compensating circuitry nulls the characteristic offset voltage of the AMR sensor, which enhances the sensors performance. The sensor provides x-, y- and z-axes magnetic field component measurements, as well as a sensor temperature measurement which is used for the temperature compensation of the magnetic field measurement.
GPS Receivers and Antennas: The NSS GPS Receivers are a 12-channel, hardware-based receiver which utilises a well-established GPS chipset. This GPS chipset has been successfully flown by a number of organisations over many years. Targeted towards low-cost SmallSat constellations, it has been adapted for space altitude and velocity through the use of custom software modifications. The NSS GPS-01 includes an unregulated, isolated 28V power input and differential interfaces. They employ latch-up detection/ protection and a watchdog timer for increased reliability and robustness.
Reaction Wheels: A high performance alternative to propulsion based reaction control system, reaction wheels provide spacecraft with control torque by means of momentum exchange between the satellite body and the rotating wheel. The increasing popularity of these wheels coupled with our commitment to high quality, fit-for-purpose components has resulted in NSS offering these wheels in a range of standard sizes (NRWA-T065, NRWA-T2, NRWA-T6, NRWA-T8 and NRWA-T32) or can offer a customised fly wheel for mission optimisation. Typically, three to four reaction wheels are needed to provide full three-axis control of a spacecraft.
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