In brief

Following a call for proposals and careful selection process, two university teams have now been chosen to participate in the pilot edition of the Fly Your Satellite! Test Opportunities programme. This is designed to give students valuable support and training in conducting an environmental test campaign of their devices. Programme is actually open not to CubeSat only, perhaps worth to cancel this and leaving only “ in conducting environmental test of their devices”

In-depth

Candidate student teams worked hard to prepare proposals that were reviewed by Fly Your Satellite! and CubeSat Support Facility staff, with two teams finally being selected for test windows in February and April 2023:

UoBSat: PROVE-Pathfinder, University of Bristol, UK

This project aims to build a CubeSat payload as a technology demonstrator for detecting and tracking volcanic ash clouds using novel sensing technology. The PROVE-Pathfinder payload will include two cameras and an electronics board, designed to slot into a 6U CubeSat bus. The entire project is student-led, building on designs made as part of undergraduate and postgraduate projects from across several faculties at the University of Bristol.

Orbit NTNU: FRAMSat-1, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway

The main objective of the FRAMSat mission is to validate an experimental Sun sensor integrated into the satellite bus, and launch a full satellite bus through a mix of off-the-shelf and in-house developed subsystems. The satellite will also capture and downlink image data to ground stations on Earth. FRAMSat-1 is a collaboration between the voluntary student-driven organisation Orbit NTNU, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Eidsvoll Electronics AS, Isar Aerospace, and Andøya Space.

Following the selection process, the student groups were invited to present their test proposals to the Fly Your Satellite! team at a programme kick-off meeting held in November 2022. During the same event, the students were offered a webinar on environmental testing by CubeSat Support Facility operators. All selected student teams did an outstanding job in presenting their test proposals and responding to questions raised by Fly Your Satellite! staff. The teams are thrilled to start learning about environmental testing and how to put their devices through their paces!

Stay tuned for more test windows opening soon! More information about the Fly Your Satellite! Test Opportunities programme can be found here.

• ESA also photo