UPSat – the first open source hardware and software satellite is delivered
upsat.grHey there, UPSat team member here. If you have any questions for the team I would be more than happy to answer them of relay them to the team.
Great project!
The overview doesn't really say what the satellite is for, so I went digging. It looks like you have two payloads, the https://www.qb50.eu/ system for analysing the thin plasma of the upper atmosphere and a 5MP imager (essentially a cellphone camera in space)?
How do you handle comms to ground - do you have to rent time on ground stations or do you have your own?
I quite like the use of multiple STM32F4 microcontrollers, one per subsystem. Are they special spacegrade ones or "regular"?
That's right we have two payloads a QB50 subsystem to analyse thin plasma and an imager
Comms are handled via the SatNOGS project open satellite project
STM32F4 aren't special spacegrade but they have already being used successfully in other cubesats
What does it actually do, i.e. what is it's mission?
I couldn't find this info anywhere on the website.
It's part of the QB50 project aiming to collect data from thin plasma in thermosphere.
Hello, and congrats on the project. Could you provide a brief overview as to how does one actually launch the satellite into space? Is there a company that does this, what kind of permits/certifications/etc are needed, etc?
Will there be a hardened version? Shielded from laser attacks, EMI attacks, projectiles, explosives, etc?
There's no sensible way to shield a satellite from projectiles at orbital velocity.
I wonder about the other risks. What do you think is the most effective way to disable a satellite? (And correspondingly, the best way to keep one safe?)
How do you actually _do_ the simulations/testing for various scenarios?
Ha! My first thought on opening the page was "that cleanroom in the picture looks just like the one we have in Yes!Delft". It's a small world after all...
Congratulations on the milestone!
Thanks!
indeed this is the Yes!Delft cleanroom :)
Great work! When (roughly) do you expect it to be launched, and will we be able to receive signals with a Raspberry Pi + Tv Tuner SDR stick? :)
Launch is scheduled for 30th of Dec 2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_CRS_OA-7
Yes you will be able to receive telemetry. Check satnogs-client for how you can set it up! https://github.com/satnogs/satnogs-client
What do you use for attitude control? Are your design files and software on a public repository?
Two common options are magneto-torque rods that that use the earth's magnetic field or reaction wheels that spin masses up and down to provide torques to provide attitude control. They've documented their attitude systems btw on the site [1] it's magneto-torques and a "spin torquer" which I hadn't heard of but looks like it's another type of magnetic attitude control.
If elkos doesn't answer, according to some research I did, 'reaction wheels' are mostly used for changing attitude, and attitude is measured using either star tracking or sunray angle measurement.
One source: http://bluecanyontech.com/portfolio-posts/cubesatsystems/
Note: I'm not particularly familiar with CubeSat development other than being very curious about it.
I would love to know this too. Also, in general, could you talk a bit about other possible 'avionic' systems in the satellite?
Where are the hardware and software sources? :)
The menu of the linked post has an entry named 'Source' which points to:
So what is the cost of this thing? How much will it take for me to put something like a Raspberry Pi in orbit?
I found a page for 2009 that breaks down the cost of a generic educational cubesat down. It includes the ability to do attitude control and a camera and it came to ~52k including launch costs. It's probably fallen since then.
Is it solar powered?
Yes, those trapezoid looking black things on the sides are solar panels.
It surely has onboard batteries as well.