The CubeSat team is working to design a complete functional satellite for NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative.
A CubeSat is a satellite composed of one or more 10cm x 10cm x 10cm cubes that get released into space as a secondary (or occasionally primary) payload. The CubeSat platform was designed to give students and researchers an affordable way to send their technology to space. They typically test novel technologies or small scientific experiments that may later become commonplace in space exploration. For example, the PhoneSat project was instrumental in lowering development costs for first time satellite developers, while the KickSat project served as the inspiration for Breakthrough Starshot, which aims to be the first interstellar space mission. RocketLab, a company dedicated to the launch of small spacecraft such as CubeSats, intends to launch the first private mission to Venus by 2023. UCR’s CubeSat project intends to test two novel technologies. Iterating upon research conducted by the PhoneSat project, our satellite will use an Android smartphone to provide image and sensor data, as well as data storage and processing capabilities. Additionally, the team will is engineering a system to deorbit the satellite at the end of the mission, whether that be in the event of a system failure or a predetermined date. This system will take advantage of the minimal amounts of air in low earth orbit to create drag and slow down the satellite, slowly taking the spacecraft out of orbit. If accepted in the 2020 round of CSLI applicants, we aim to launch no later than 2024, meeting Aerospace Systems’ goal of reaching space by 2025.
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AEROSPACE SYSTEMS | UCR
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