ELROI: A License Plate For Your Satellite
David M. Palmer1 and Rebecca M. Holmes2
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, 87545
Space object identification is vital for operating spacecraft, space traffic control,
and space situational awareness, but initial determination, maintenance, and recovery
of identity are all difficult, expensive, and error-prone, especially for small objects like
CubeSats. Attaching a beacon or license plate with a unique identification number to
a space object before launch would greatly simplify the task, but radio beacons are
power-hungry and can cause interference. This paper describes a new concept for a
satellite license plate, the Extremely Low Resource Optical Identifier or ELROI. ELROI
is a milliwatt-scale self-powered autonomous optical beacon that can be attached to any
space object to transmit a persistent identification signal to ground stations. A system
appropriate for a LEO CubeSat or other small space object can fit in a package with
the area of a postage stamp and a few millimeters thick, and requires no power, data,
or control from the host object. The concept has been validated with ground tests,
and the first flight test unit is scheduled for launch in 2018. The unique identification
number of a LEO satellite can be determined unambiguously in a single orbital pass
over a low-cost ground station.

It’s a wonder they hadn’t done something like this years ago.

Okay, thread topic is pretty boring, but this other space-rerated article is fascinating.

THE COSMIC DUST ANALYSER ONBOARD CASSINI: TEN YEARS OF DISCOVERIES

R. Srama et all.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.04772

Bubblecar said:

It’s a wonder they hadn’t done something like this years ago.

ELROI hasn’t been totally miniaturised yet, but is small enough to fit in this cubesat. ELROI is basically a rapidly blinking one watt LED, it’s as simple as that.

New Mexico Tech cubesat