Three weeks, five tests: ALEASAT one step closer to space
From 6 to 24 June 2026, students from the ALEASAT team from the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University, Canada, conducted an extensive environmental test campaign at the CubeSat Support Facility, at ESA ESEC Galaxia, Belgium, as part of ESA's Fly Your Satellite! programme. Over three weeks, the team conducted vibration, thermal-vacuum, thermal balance and functional tests on ALEASAT subsystems and its spacecraft model. The campaign provided valuable hands-on experience, generated data to improve design and simulation models, and marked an important step towards future qualification testing.
ALEASAT is a student-built CubeSat developed by students from the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University in Canada. As part of their participation in the Fly Your Satellite! programme, the team travelled to ESA's CubeSat Support Facility to subject several key spacecraft elements to a comprehensive environmental test campaign.
The campaign was particularly ambitious, spanning three consecutive weeks of testing and combining multiple test activities. During the first two weeks, vibration and thermal vacuum (TVAC) testing were conducted in parallel, requiring the team to prepare and operate multiple subsystems while managing different test procedures, functional checks and inspection activities.
The first week focused on the Camera Payload and the Antenna Deployment Module (ADM). While the camera underwent vibration testing on the 20 kN shaker, the ADM was simultaneously tested under thermal vacuum conditions.
In the second week, the activities were reversed: the ADM was subjected to vibration testing, while the Camera underwent thermal testing.
The final week focused on a thermal balance test of the ALEASAT Engineering Qualification Model (EQM), providing the team with an opportunity to gather system-level thermal data and compare the experimental results with their existing thermal model.
Learning from shaking
The camera vibration test provided the students with an important practical lesson in environmental testing. During vibration testing, the camera filter became unscrewed, causing this portion of the test to fail.
Although unexpected hardware behaviour is never desirable, identifying design weaknesses on the ground is one of the main objectives of environmental testing. The observation provided the team with a clear indication of where the design could be improved before progressing further with the mission.
The ADM, on the other hand, successfully completed its vibration testing. The results provided confidence in the mechanical robustness of the design which proved particularly stiff under the applied vibration loads. Together with the observations from the camera test, the test thereby gave the students practical experience in interpreting hardware behaviour under realistic launch loads and translating test observations into potential design improvements.
Putting the Camera Payload through its thermal paces
The Camera Payload also underwent a dedicated thermal test, during which the team performed functional tests while observing the behaviour of the camera at different temperatures.
One particularly interesting aspect of the test involved pointing the camera towards the TVAC chamber window to image a specially designed target positioned outside the chamber:
Outside the chamber, a specially designed target featuring a pattern was positioned to help characterise different types of image aberrations. By collecting images at different temperatures, the students could investigate how thermal deformation of the camera and its lens affects image quality.
This approach allowed the team to do more than confirm that the Camera continued to operate across a range of temperatures. The data collected can provide insights into the relationship between temperature, mechanical deformation and optical performance.
Baking the Antenna Deployment Module
The ADM also underwent thermal vacuum testing during the campaign. During the test, both antennas did not achieve full deployment.
Once again, the outcome gave the team valuable insight into the behaviour of their hardware. The test revealed how the deployment mechanism behaved under thermal-vacuum conditions, allowing the students to identify areas for design improvement.
Combined with the successful vibration test, the ADM campaign gave the team a much more complete understanding of the behaviour of the mechanism under different environmental conditions. The lessons learned will feed directly into future design updates and subsequent testing.
From subsystem testing to system-level thermal modelling
The final week of the campaign marked an important transition from subsystem-level testing towards system-level environmental testing. The ALEASAT EQM underwent a thermal balance test to characterise the thermal behaviour of the spacecraft and gather data for correlation with their thermal model.
By comparing model predictions with measurements obtained from the EQM, the team can refine the thermal model and improve the accuracy of future simulations.
This work will be particularly useful as ALEASAT progresses towards its next development stages. A better-correlated thermal model will help the team assess the impact of future design changes and prepare more effectively for subsequent thermal campaigns both at subsystem level and at full spacecraft level.
A valuable step towards a full environmental test campaign
Over the course of three weeks, the ALEASAT students encountered many of the challenges involved in testing real space hardware. From preparing test procedures and configuring test equipment to monitoring hardware behaviour, investigating unexpected results and analysing experimental data, the campaign provided a unique opportunity to experience the iterative nature of spacecraft development firsthand.
More broadly, the campaign represents an important step towards a future full environmental test campaign of the ALEASAT EQM, during which the complete spacecraft will be exposed to the environmental conditions expected during launch and operation.
The experience gained at the CubeSat Support Facility will accompany the team throughout the remainder of the ALEASAT mission and contribute to preparing the next generation of Canadian space engineers for future missions.
While the ALEASAT campaign was conducted within the Fly Your Satellite! programme, similar testing opportunities are also available to student teams outside the programmes. Through the Test Opportunities programme, teams can benefit from access to professional testing facilities and technical support to help prepare their hardware for future missions.
To learn more about the programme, click here.