Georgia Institute of Technology

The Georgia Institute of Technology's Space Systems Design Laboratory (SSDL), part of the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, gives students end-to-end experience building and flying small spacecraft. SSDL projects span mission concept development, systems engineering, spacecraft fabrication, environmental testing, and on-orbit operations.

SSDL's first satellite to reach orbit was RANGE (Ranging And Nanosatellite Guidance Experiment), consisting of two identical 1.5U CubeSats, RANGE-A and RANGE-B, launched together in December 2018 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 as part of the Spaceflight SSO-A rideshare mission. RANGE demonstrated centimeter-to-millimeter-level relative-position determination between two small satellites using GPS receivers with miniaturized atomic clocks and an onboard laser ranging system — a key technology for future satellite formation-flying and swarm missions.

Georgia Tech's small-satellite work extends into research on CubeSat-based astrophysics and exoplanet detection, autonomous rendezvous and proximity operations, and low-cost attitude determination and control systems, positioning SSDL as a active contributor to the university small-satellite ecosystem.