The satellite trio “V-R3x” are now deployed and officially a (resounding) success. You might remember these sats: they’re the ones doing what SpaceX wishes Starlink could do + collecting the data Max Holliday’s PhD thesis, BUT, most importantly, they’re running PURE CIRCUITPYTHON! 🐍
Cutting edge tech, all open source (the files will be released when allowed), and conceptualized -> implemented -> integrated onto the rocket in less than one (trying) year.
Max writes:
I did all the hardware, software, and firmware for this mission (standing on the shoulders of Adafruit-giants, of course!) and I’m currently running mission operations. I haven’t slept in 3 days, but who’s counting. I’m grateful for the NASA support on the bureaucracy-side of things, but don’t give their site too many hits if they can’t be bothered to mention my one-man show 😋 https://www.nasa.gov/ames/v-r3x.
Fun pictures below. But before that, I wanted to share with you how awesome CircuitPython flight-software has been:
Turns out deployment from SpaceX’s Falcon 9 put our lovely trio (Littlefoot, Cera, and Petrie) into quite a tumble! Not to worry, they’re still mesh networking, talking to the ground, etc… but an unexpected side effect has been pitiful solar charging performance. Lucky for me, the flight-software has a command that will run Python’s: `exec()` function using anything I want as the arguments – the possibilities are endless! This has enabled countless little hotfixes, queries and tweaks over the past couple days, and I’ll be able to be able to upload a b-dot routine that uses the satellite’s built-in magnetic torque coils to detumble. Huzzah!
Long story short: CircuitPython means these satellites don’t have to become space junk for their remaining 6 years in orbit after they’ve completed their mission… they can be sandboxes! Adafruit made this possible. ❤
LOTS more to come. Max
Here are more pictures from the process:



