Putting the pieces together: ISTsat-1 and 3Cat-4 protoflight models successfully assembled!
In brief
ESA Academy’s Fly Your Satellite! programme gives university students the opportunity to design, build, and eventually launch their own satellites into orbit. The second edition began in 2017, and includes two teams that have now reached the major milestone of assembling their protoflight models: the versions that will fly into space once all the qualification tests have been passed.
In-depth
ISTsat-1
ISTsat-1 will be the first-ever satellite built by a university student team in Portugal (Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon). Its mission is to carry out a feasibility study into the use of nanosatellites to track and characterise transponder signals of aircraft over remote areas, such as oceans.
To maximise the educational benefits of this opportunity, the students decided to develop most of their subsystems in-house, including designing, building, and testing their own structure, on-board computer, electrical power system (including battery pack), and even communications subsystem.
Following extensive engineering model subsystem testing, the team have now successfully completed the Assembly and Integration campaign of their protoflight model with support from ESA experts joining via livestream.
An ISTsat-1 student who took part in the integration campaign said with a smile, “the campaign was a team effort with well-established shifts and well-deserved breaks, which was especially needed when working in bunny suits in a noisy clean room.” (Clean room suits are often nicknamed bunny suits!)
3Cat-4
3Cat-4 (“cube-cat-four”) is being developed by students working in the Nanosat Lab, an initiative from Spain’s Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. It has numerous science objectives, including testing a Flexible Microwave payload for Earth Observation; using Global Navigation Satellite System reflectometry and L-band microwave radiometry; and validating the design of an Automatic Identification Service.
Upon completion of their Critical Design Review, the team worked hard on the manufacturing and verification of their in-house subsystems and payload. A particular puzzle has been how to stow a half-metre antenna inside the CubeSat’s diminutive form, but good progress has been made on this front.
As of April 2022, both the ISTsat-1 and 3Cat-4 teams concluded the assembly and integration campaign for their protoflight models. The students were then able to measure the external dimensions and mass of the models, verifying compliance with specified restrictions.
All participating students showed an impressive level of professionalism, and as a result the campaigns were remarkably smooth, with only a few minor hiccups. The next step is functional tests, ensuring that the CubeSats can complete their planned tasks when eventually in orbit!
For more updates, be sure to regularly check the Fly Your Satellite! webpage.