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Carnegie Mellon University

SST footprint: 1 project (PY4 swarm) | TechPort footprint: 7 projects across 5 programs (SST, FO, NIAC, STRG, ARC CIF) under Zachary Manchester | Outcome: flew (March 2024, SpaceX Transporter-10) | Platform impact: PyCubed open-source avionics used by multiple missions

Last updated: 2026-04-14 (session 19)

The Story

Zachary Manchester built one of the SST portfolio's most remarkable technology lineages: from a Kickstarter-funded femtosatellite (KickSat, 2012) to a 4-CubeSat swarm demo on orbit (PY4, 2024). Along the way, he created PyCubed — an open-source CubeSat avionics platform that lowered the barrier to entry for the entire small spacecraft community. With 7 TechPort projects across 5 STMD programs, Manchester has the broadest program footprint of any university PI in the SST portfolio.

SST Project

PY4 — Low-Cost CubeSat Swarm Demo 155367

  • Period: 2022-09-01 to 2025-02-28
  • TRL: 4 → 4 (target 8; TechPort field may lag actual on-orbit results)
  • Lead org: Carnegie Mellon University
  • PI: Zachary Manchester
  • TX: TX02 Flight Computing and Avionics
  • Partner: Ames Research Center (integration and testing support)
  • Description: Four 1.5U CubeSats built on the PyCubed open-source avionics platform. No propulsion — formation control via differential drag (adjusting orientation to modulate atmospheric drag). COTS LoRa radio modules for both communication and two-way time-of-flight ranging.

PY4 Mission Results

  • Launch: March 4, 2024, SpaceX Falcon 9 Transporter-10, Vandenberg SFB
  • Successfully demonstrated:
  • High-data-rate mesh networking between 4 spacecraft
  • Precise inter-satellite ranging (LoRa time-of-flight)
  • Range-based relative orbit determination
  • Magnetorquer-only sun pointing
  • Total ionizing dose radiation measurements (30-second intervals across 4 spacecraft)
  • Baseline mission requirements: Met
  • SmallSat 2024 paper: "The PY4 Mission: A Low-Cost Demonstration of CubeSat Formation-Flying Technologies"
  • NTRS: ARC factsheet [20230011358] (Stupl & Holliday, 2023)

Confidence: confirmed (NASA press release, CMU press, SmallSat 2024 paper, SatNews launch coverage)

Full TechPort Footprint (Zachary Manchester)

Project Program Period TRL Role Lead Org Status
14626 KickSat ChipSat demo ARC CIF 2012–2013 3→7 PI ARC Completed
155367 PY4 swarm SST 2022–2025 4→4 PI CMU Completed
106685 V-R3x radio ranging FO 2020–2023 4→6 Co-I ARC Completed
106015 km-Scale Space Structures Ph I NIAC 2021–2021 1→2 PI CMU Completed
117023 km-Scale Space Structures Ph II NIAC 2022–2024 2→3 PI CMU Completed
95649 Robust Entry Guidance STRG 2018–2024 2→3 PI CMU Completed
182833 HERDS deployable structures FO 2025–2028 — PI CMU Active

7 projects, 5 programs, 13 years (2012–2028). This is the broadest STMD program footprint of any university PI in the SST portfolio.

The KickSat → PyCubed → V-R3x → PY4 Lineage

This is a 12-year technology lineage where each step built on the previous:

KickSat (2012–2013, ARC CIF)

  • Cornell PhD project (Manchester was a Cornell PhD student)
  • Kickstarter-funded — first crowdfunded space mission
  • Demonstrated deployment and operation of "Sprite" ChipSats (femtosatellites)
  • TRL 3→7 — reached flight demonstration
  • KickSat-2 flew successfully and served as the flight heritage platform for PyCubed

PyCubed (open-source platform, ~2019)

  • Open-source, radiation-tested CubeSat avionics platform
  • Integrates power, computing, communication, and ADCS into a single PC104-compatible module
  • Programmable entirely in Python (via CircuitPython) — dramatically simplified CubeSat software development
  • Flight heritage on KickSat-2
  • All design files on GitHub
  • Used by V-R3x and PY4 missions
  • Impact beyond Manchester's own missions: PyCubed lowers the barrier for students and researchers to build flight-ready CubeSats. This is infrastructure impact, not just mission impact.

V-R3x (2020–2023, FO, ARC-led)

  • 3× 1U CubeSats demonstrating radio cross-linking, ranging, and coordinated measurements
  • Manchester was Co-I (ARC-led mission)
  • TRL 4→6
  • Flew on PACE-1, deployed from ISS (see ARC org page)
  • PY4 description explicitly states it "builds on the PyCubed open-source avionics platform and the previous V-R3x mission"

PY4 (2022–2025, SST)

  • 4× 1.5U CubeSats — scaling up from V-R3x's 3× 1U
  • Added formation-flying via differential drag (no propulsion)
  • Added relative orbit determination from ranging data
  • Successful on-orbit demo March 2024
2012  KickSat (Cornell PhD, Kickstarter) — femtosatellites, TRL 3→7
  ↓   technology: CubeSat deployment, low-cost avionics
2019  PyCubed (open-source platform) — flight heritage on KickSat-2
  ↓   technology: standardized avionics, Python flight software
2020  V-R3x (FO, ARC-led) — 3-CubeSat radio ranging, TRL 4→6
  ↓   technology: cross-linking, inter-satellite ranging, coordinated ops
2024  PY4 (SST, CMU-led) — 4-CubeSat swarm, mesh networking, formation flying
  ↓
2025  HERDS (FO, CMU-led) — deployable structures (new thread)

Career Arc

  • Cornell University — PhD in Aerospace Engineering. KickSat project.
  • Stanford University — Assistant Professor, Robotic Exploration Lab. V-R3x involvement.
  • Carnegie Mellon University — Director, Robotic Exploration Lab (moved lab with him). PY4, NIAC, STRG, HERDS.

Note: Manchester moved from Stanford to CMU, bringing his lab and research program with him. Similar to John Christian (JSC→GA Tech) — the person is the continuity, not the institution.

NIAC: Kilometer-Scale Space Structures

A separate research thread from the swarm work. Manchester proposed using thin-film inflatables and mechanical metamaterials to deploy rotating space habitats (for artificial gravity) from a single launch. Advanced through NIAC Phase I→Phase II (TRL 1→3). This work continues in a new direction via the HERDS project (FO, 2025–2028) on deployable structures using "pop-up extending truss" mechanisms.

People & Connections

  • Zachary Manchester — Cornell PhD → Stanford → CMU. KickSat founder. PyCubed co-creator.
  • Maximillian Holliday — PyCubed co-developer, PY4 NTRS factsheet co-author (ARC).
  • Jan Michael Stupl — ARC, PY4 factsheet co-author. ARC's SST program management.
  • Anh N Nguyen — Co-I on V-R3x (ARC). ARC swarm networking team.
  • Jeffrey Lipton — Co-I on NIAC km-scale structures and HERDS. CMU collaborator.
  • ARC connection: KickSat (ARC CIF), V-R3x (ARC FO), PY4 (ARC support). ARC is the consistent NASA center partner across Manchester's career.

Cross-References

Assessment

Manchester's value to the SST portfolio is threefold:

  1. PY4 mission success: Demonstrated low-cost swarm formation flying without propulsion — directly relevant to future distributed sensing missions.

  2. PyCubed platform impact: Open-source CubeSat avionics that benefit the entire small spacecraft community. This is infrastructure impact — harder to measure than a single mission but potentially higher total value. PyCubed reduces the cost and complexity for any team building a CubeSat.

  3. Breadth of STMD engagement: 7 projects across 5 programs over 13 years. Manchester is a "program-spanning" PI who brings ideas from one STMD program to another (NIAC→FO for deployable structures, ARC CIF→SST for swarm tech). This cross-pollination is exactly what STMD's multi-program portfolio is designed to enable.

Contrast with D'Amico (Stanford): Both are swarm/formation-flying PIs with deep SST connections. D'Amico's work is precision (cm-level GNSS relative nav) while Manchester's is cost (no propulsion, Python avionics, open-source). They represent complementary approaches to the same problem domain. D'Amico's algorithms flew on Starling; Manchester's platform flew on PY4.