Miniature Tether Electrodynamics Experiment(MiTEE)

What is MiTEE?

MiTEE is a series of CubeSat projects run by students at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor and overseen by Prof. Brian Gilchrist. MiTEE is interested in using electrodynamic tethers, a current conducting, long wire, connected to the cube satellite to interact with the magnetic field of the Earth to provide propellantless propulsion.

Why is this interesting?

Using electrodynamic tethers for propulsion eliminates needs for fuel, and provides a low cost, low energy requirement method to power small cube satellites. This could potentially unlock the potential of small picosats such as, large, space-based antenna arrays, monitoring of natural disasters and space weather, and controllable fleets of large numbers of satellites, perhaps bringing cheap internet communication to remote areas of the world.

What is my role on this team?

I initially joined as a member of the Command and Data Handling subteam of this research project, helping build a small baremetal File System for memory storage on the satellite. I then moved to work on groundstation communications, and eventually becoming an assistant lead of the subteam, leading a couple of members to build a real time data visualization system before leaving the team after I graduated from the University of Michigan.

More Information

Please visit the MiTEE website for more information!