The excitement surrounding the idea of space exploration and travel has increased in recent years due to developments by SpaceX and its founder, Elon Musk. But far more goes into the recent progress than just one company and people in Champaign are doing their part. 

Champaign-Urbana Aerospace has a collection of professors affiliated with the University and engineers from the Midwest who are developing new technologies. Its president, David Carroll, used to work at the University but saw an opportunity to do more with CUA. 

“We started in 1998,” Carroll said. “We spun out of the aerospace engineering department. We’re to the point of making what I think are great space projects.”

Though CUA was officially founded in 1998, nothing was guaranteed when the idea sparked to leave the University.

“The first year was a complete bust, so it’s a good thing we all kept our day jobs at the University,” Carroll said. “The second year, we started getting contracts, and I went full-time for the company.”

Once they had some job security and more employees joined full-time, CUA developed the company more. Things started slowly, and the team took steps they weren’t expecting to make.

“Early in the company’s history — probably the first 13 years — we did a lot more research and development,” Carroll said. “When I took over as president in 2011, I sort of recognized that we needed to think a little smaller.”

With big aspirations, the company was forced to change direction. But smaller didn’t mean less impactful for CUA. Carroll’s decision shifted the company to making hardware that will be sent into space, and the progress is paying off. 

The main hardware being worked on right now is CubeSat. CubeSats aren’t unique to CUA, being one of the more popular forms of satellites. Their small size makes them suitable options for smaller companies, relating to Carroll’s decision to think smaller. 

CUA’s plans, with its CubeSat in particular, will leverage a low-thrust, high-impulse propulsion system that has received interest for potential contracts soon. 

In simple terms, it’s a cube-shaped satellite that will launch into Earth’s atmosphere. The one developed by CUA has deployable solar panels to help power the electric system.

After years of work, CUA’s version will launch next summer. Set to go up in June 2025, the satellite will take other technological products manufactured by the company. 

On one side, the satellite will have a Fiber-Fed Pulsed Plasma Thruster to lower the propulsion cost. The FPPT uses Teflon fiber and is part of multiple projects CUA is working on. The other side will have Monofilament Vaporization Propulsion, a warm gas system that will lower the cost of the trip significantly.

With multiple different technologies on the satellite, putting this project together is not a one-person job. One thing Carroll is proud of is the diversity across the staff who work on the CubeSat and many other projects.

“They all wear a lot of hats,” Carroll said about his team’s ability to multitask. “Having very good, skilled engineers be able to handle the job and juggle the programs is really important.”

One of those engineers is Ryan Fox, who has been with CUA since January 2022. During his time in Champaign, Fox has worked on various projects and loves the flexibility of the workplace.

“I would say right now we have seven or eight things that somebody could come into my office at any given part of the day and say, ‘Hey, I’m thinking about this for this project, what do you think?’” Fox said. “A lot of it is really trying to manage time well.”

With so many things to juggle, time management and organization are important. While all the tasks of a smaller company force that on the employees, Fox appreciates the environment. 

“We each know each other’s strengths and weaknesses,” Fox said. “I can just go right down the hall and ask someone a question, so that kind of flexibility lets us do things a little bit quicker.”

Although the company is small, everyone is happy with the work they accomplish. After launching the satellite in 2025, Carroll has his eye on another important project — cleaning up the atmosphere. He says it is becoming a major concern for many involved in the industry, and CUA is turning to “active debris removal.” 

There are nearly 10,000 pieces of space hardware floating around, and even more will be launched soon. To keep newer satellites and astronauts in space stations safe, debris removal is vital. Mastering a spacecraft with enough power to make multiple trips for debris is the goal, and it needs to happen quickly.

“Some of these pieces of hardware … are either just never going to decay, or they’re going to come down so slowly that they can become a real problem,” Carroll said. “The space station is going around the Earth at about 7.8 kilometers per second. If you’ve got a particle coming the other way at the same velocity, or even just stationary, you’re hitting it at unbelievable speeds. Way faster than a bullet.”

The CUA is trying to avoid Kessler Syndrome, which is when it is no longer safe to launch through Earth’s orbit due to too much space junk hurtling through the atmosphere at dangerous speeds. This would put a dent in many plans of space travel, so cleaning up sooner rather than later is an important move.

CUA is working on an FPPT system 40 times larger than the one it is sending up on the CubeSat next summer for this project, and mastering the longevity of the hardware will take time. Nevertheless, progress is being made in Champaign, and CUA is contributing to the space effort, taking the world by storm.

@benfader7 

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