UC students' mini satellite tracks harmful algal growth

Algal blooms are a natural part of a lake’s ecological cycle, but can be harmful when colonies of algae grow out of control and produce toxic or harmful effects on the local ecosystem or population.

Harmful algal blooms are an important area of study, especially for Ohio. They are on the rise in the Great Lakes region due to a number of environmental factors. Toxic algae can be quite damaging to a lake's health, natural ecosystem, drinking water supply, and local tourism, so there is a strong motivation to study it.

Harmful algal blooms occur naturally, but human activities that disturb ecosystems seem to play a role in the increased occurrence of some blooms. Knowing when, where, and how algal blooms become harmful could help communities mitigate blooms before they reach critical toxicity levels. State and federal agencies that monitor and respond to toxic algae could greatly benefit from improved imaging of the blooms.

UC students are studying how to best track and predict these occurrences through CubeCats, a student organization dedicated to the education of its members through the development and launch of cube satellites, or CubeSats (a miniature-scale type of satellite). They hope to reduce negative impact on the ecosystem by using miniaturized satellites to track environmentally harmful growths of algae in Ohio.

The project is called HABsat-1. Its goal is “to build and demonstrate a multispectral imaging CubeSat optimized for the study of harmful algal bloom dynamics in the Great Lakes and other Ohio water bodies."

CubeSats are so named in reference to their standardized 10x10x10cm cube shape, which is known as a "U”. HABsat-1 will be made of three of these cubes put together, resulting in a final size of 10x10x30cm—or "3U"— small enough to fit inside a countertop microwave.

The small size of a CubeSat is advantageous because it costs much less—in terms of money, risk, and development time—than a conventional satellite.

Toxic algae blooms are the main target of the students’ investigation. This is the first of what the team envisions will become many satellites that could create a kind of HAB early warning system. They hope to compose a constellation— a small network of satellites working in concert— that specializes in tracking and predicting HABs. One well-known constellation is the Global Positioning System (GPS).

Jessica Kropveld (aerospace engineering, ’20), is chief engineer and payload lead for the project. Kropveld hopes that environmental applications of satellite technology will help form a clearer picture of how humans can reduce their negative environmental impact. “As remote as space is, I view it as a domain that can be used to help humanity in very practical ways,” Kropveld said.

The HABsat-1 will observe the algal blooms using a multispectral camera— an imaging instrument with four separate camera lenses, each of which are sensitive to a specific color of light. After processing the data, the image provides in-depth information and helps to predict when they will appear in the future.

The exact bands of light in focus were chosen because they approximately match important signatures given off by chlorophyll and phycocyanin, a pigment molecule characteristic of some HABs, and have been successfully used by other satellites in the past.