UoBSat team concludes thrilling three-week test campaign at the CubeSat Support Facility
The UoBSat team from the University of Bristol recently completed their environmental test campaign, and it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for all involved! They tested PROVE-Pathfinder, a CubeSat imaging payload, as part of the Fly Your Satellite! “Test Opportunities” programme at the CubeSat Support Facility of ESEC-Galaxia. The campaign was a stimulating experience for all involved and included vibration testing, thermal vacuum testing, and thermal balance testing.
From April 1 to April 21, 2023, the students worked tirelessly at the CubeSat Support Facility cleanroom to test their payload, named PROVE-Pathfinder. The team consisted of four students who participated in the first week, and another four who joined for the second and third weeks of the campaign. The UoBSat team was the first to perform a test campaign as part of “Test Opportunities” programme. This program is designed to provide university students with an opportunity to carry out environmental test campaigns at the CubeSat Support Facility, where they gain access to professional testing facilities and expert support. The ultimate goal of this programme is to complement the courses received at the university with practical experience in the space domain, and ultimately prepare them to tackle the challenges of tomorrow with more confidence.
To prepare, the students had to get acquainted with and apply the same standard processes followed by professional European space industry projects. This required a lot of studying and collecting information to plan the test campaign and prepare the test procedure. Nonetheless, the students were able to appreciate the fruits of their hard work. «The team developed a newfound appreciation for the requirements and standards that shape the workflow of satellite qualification. This is something that is hard to cultivate without practical experience,» one UoBSat student remarks, «but is doubtless crucial in industry and I look forward to taking this experience with me into my future career!»
During the campaign, the team encountered a few hiccups while assembling the test setup on the electrodynamic shaker in the first week. But, with the help of the engineers of the CubeSat Support Facility, they managed to complete the vibration test successfully. The second week brought a new challenge for the team, as they discovered that the behaviour of their test item in thermal vacuum was not as reliable as expected. However, the team didn't let this setback get them down. They worked hard to investigate the issues and were able to find the root cause of the problem. By the third week, the team had a better understanding of the problem and executed some temperature cycling to characterise the thermal behaviour of the camera in thermal vacuum; this data will be immensely useful to the team, as they will use it to improve the thermal model of their payload device.
The UoBSat team's participation in the programme is a testament to their commitment to hard work and we wish them a huge success for their future CubeSat mission. «The amount that our team has learned over the last six months has been incredible. It has been such an amazing opportunity to understand concepts that we have previously only been taught in theory. Putting them into practice in the campaign has definitely confirmed my desire to work in the satellite industry,» said one of the students. Congratulations, UoBSat team, on a job well done!
The UoBSat team is only the first team to visit the CubeSat Support Facility as part of the Test Opportunities programme, and we expect more student teams to join us at the CSF later this summer.
To learn more about the programme, click here.
