The Nemo Bus: A Third Generation High-Performance Nanosatellite for Earth Monitoring and Observation

The NEMO (Nanosatellite for Earth Monitoring and Observation) bus is the next evolution to the Generic Nanosatellite Bus (GNB) technology and provides a foundation for future high-performance nanosatellites from the Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS). The bus has a primary structure measuring 20 cm by 20 cm by 40 cm. It is capable of peak power generation up to 80W. A minimum of 30W is available to the payload, which enables the bus to support a dedicated state-of-the-art high speed transmitter. The bus is designed with a total mass of 15 kg, 9 kg of which is dedicated to the payload. It can be configured for full three-axis control with up to 1 arcmin pointing stability. The first spacecraft to use this new bus technology is the NEMO-AM (Aerosol Monitoring) spacecraft, which is designed to perform multi-spectral observations in the visual band. The satellite will detect aerosol content in the atmosphere with a nominal equivalent ground resolution of 200 m. NEMO-AM is being built under a collaborative agreement between SFL and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). This paper summarizes the innovative aspects of the NEMO bus and the NEMO-AM mission