The team is part of the Canadian CubeSat Project, which began in 2017, and spent time putting the finishing touches on its creation at the Canadian Space Agency’s headquarters in Longueuil, Que. UVic team member Alex Doknjas, a 27-year-old electrical engineering graduate, said there are about five full-time people preparing for the October launch of the device they call ORCASat — short for Optical Reference Calibration Satellite. “Also, it was built in BC. and BC it’s known for orcas, that’s the game there.” The CubeSat will be packed into a rocket that launches from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and goes to the International Space Station, which is at an altitude of 400 kilometers. There, it is sent into space via a spring-loaded device and remains open for up to 18 months collecting data that is monitored and analyzed by the university team. When the CubeSat returns to Earth, it will burn up on re-entry. The space agency selected 15 universities for grants of up to $250,000 for the national effort. UVic is leading one of the initiatives in collaboration with students from the University of BC and Simon Fraser University, and has previously won top awards for its entries in the Canadian Satellite Design Challenge. The main structure of CubeSats is made of aluminum and is typically 10 by 10 by 10 centimeters, or about the size of a Rubik’s cube, weighs about one kilogram and can be used alone or in groups of up to 24. But the UVic device has a slightly different design and is a touch larger than usual – about the size of a two liter milk carton. The advent of smaller components has made compact satellites efficient and provide a cheaper manufacturing and launch option. “It’s amazing what you can do now with the advances in technology,” said Tony Pellerin, director of the mechanical engineering group at the Canadian Space Agency. In the early 1990s, a typical satellite weighed one ton. The size eventually dropped to 250 to 500 kilograms, as weight is the main cost of sending satellites into space. Some now weigh less. The CubeSats were developed with students in mind, but businesses are also using the devices for their own missions, Pellerin said. Despite their size, CubeSats have uses ranging from carrying new cameras to test their reliability to conducting experiments such as gathering information about magnetic fields to evaluate their use in earthquake detection. Plans for the CubeSats that are part of the student project include monitoring the potato crop on Prince Edward Island to get a better idea of when to plant. The Dalhousie University satellite will also launch in October, with the remaining 13 launching in early January. Work on ORCASat began in September 2018, with UVic taking on the added challenge of building everything on its own, Doknjas said. The pandemic affected the original schedule, which called for it to be completed in two years. “Ninety per cent of the spacecraft is designed, assembled, tested here in Victoria and we use a lot of local manufacturing to help us as well,” Doknias said. Another member of the UVic team, 25-year-old fourth-year electrical and computer engineering student Stefan Bichlmaier, said he joined the project just as he was starting his degree. “Right at the beginning I didn’t really understand the whole engineering process. I didn’t even know it was possible to be part of a project that could go into space. “Putting something into space requires a lot of certainty in what you’re designing, so being a part of that was a good jump into becoming an engineer.” Pellerin said their satellite has basic components such as a power system consisting of solar panels and batteries, a computer and a radio system to communicate with the device. He said the “scientific goal” for UVic is to have a satellite that acts as an “artificial star” — with a laser as a light source. Like real stars, ORCASat emits light and is visible through a telescope, he said, although ORCASat will appear red rather than yellow. Looking at the stars, you only know how bright they look to you, not how bright they actually are, Doknjas said. But because ORCASat is equipped to measure its own brightness, the UVic team has two values to compare. “They want to correct for the atmospheric effect on light,” Pellerin said. “They can convey that information to astronomers, who can actually use that information to refine their images when they’re looking at stars.” Bichlmaier likened the experiment to subtracting the “glow” effect caused by the atmosphere from stars observed from Earth. The goal of the project is to give teachers at post-secondary institutions the opportunity to introduce students to a real space mission, with space service experts available to guide the teams. About 510 CubeSats from 50 countries have been deployed since the first went into space in 2003. The standard size for a CubeSat was established in 1999 by professors at California State University and Stanford University. [email protected]
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