SRI’s Space Technology and Integration Program offers experience in instrument development, systems engineering, and flight integration for space missions. We have three goals:

• Create a new paradigm to reinvigorate space technology innovation

• Enable rapid, low-cost space missions

• Generate space access opportunities for SRI technologies and innovations

The group comprises four focus areas: launch integration, sources and sensors, operations, and missions:

• Launch integration: SRI is committed to improving access to space through the deployment of small satellites, known as picosatellites. In particular, for the CubeSat Experiment Pipeline (CSEP) project, the group is partnering with Cal Poly and NPS to support Poly Picosatellite Orbital Deployer (P-POD) launches and maintenance of CubeSat standards.

• Sources and sensors: The group supports SRI’s Center for Geospace Studies through sensors and systems development for small satellites. We reduce the size, mass, and power needs of small satellite sub-systems while maintaining the robustness those sub-systems need for survivability in space. We also partner with SRI’s Microscience Engineering Laboratory to integrate micro- and nanotechnologies such as electron and ion sources into small satellite systems.

• Operations: SRI maintains 3-meter, 18-meter, and 47-meter dishes to support research and operations with space-based assets.  For more than a decade, SRI has supported command and control for nearly a dozen small satellite missions.  Meanwhile, we continue to use the dishes to transmit and receive RF signals, measure and analyze data, and perform a variety of other activities in support of many government and commercial clients.

• Missions: Our missions effort demonstrates innovative concepts enabled by small spacecraft, including CubeSats. We believe that innovative and effective mission demonstrations are possible for space situational awareness, networking technology for coordinated operations, sensor nets enabled by femtosats, and orbital clusters of distributed spacecraft.

Clients include nearly all of the defense and intelligence community organizations that are active in space, as well as the civil space organizations.