Our Team
UBC Orbit prides itself in providing a safe learning environment for members of all disciplines and technical backgrounds to gain hands-on experience in the development of a satellite for harsh space environments. Our team represents the forefront of highly capable like-minded students willing to go above and beyond in the name of innovation.
Advisors
The development of a satellite requires a highly cohesive team and a lot of planning and resources. To aid in making critical decisions and give invaluable advice on design issues, UBC Orbit is grateful to have the following advisors.
Leadership
Jen Jon Ma
Co-Captain
BASc Undergraduate
Materials Engineering
Yun Xing
Co-Captain
Comms Co-Lead
BASc Undergraduate
Engineering Physics
ADMIN
The Administration Team is responsible for all non-technical management tasks. The team maintains UBC Orbit’s public image, relationships, and finances. This includes searching for sponsorships, applying for funding, booking educational and industry outreach events, and managing all our social media platforms.
The ADCS team is in charge of determining and stabilizing the orientation of the satellite. The positioning of the satellite is determined using a variety of sensors, such as sun sensors and an inertial management unit(IMU). The gathered data is then fed into a custom control system which controls the satellite's actuators such as magnetorquers and reaction wheels.
AOCS
ATTITUDE AND ORBIT CONTROL SYSTEM
CDH
COMMAND AND DATA HANDLING
The CDH sub-system is essentially the brain of the satellite; it deals with carrying out commands from ground stations, compiling satellite-wide data, and monitoring/responding to any system failures. For ALEASAT, CDH developed an on-board computer system tolerant to radiation faults using a single chip (TMS570) running a real-time operating system (FreeRTOS). Implementing the concept of a state machine, ALEASAT is capable of recognizing states, like tumbling, to ensure maximum availability and reliability.
The Communications team designs the interface between the satellite and ground station. This requires dealing with advanced hardware structures, understanding constraints of radio communication, and deciding how data should be formatted to be received and transmitted by the satellite. All radio communication from the satellite utilize a programmable transceiver allowing for greater design flexibility. Additionally, the satellite will be operational by any amateur satellite station.
COMMS
COMMUNICATIONS
EPS
ELECTRICAL POWER SYSTEMS
The EPS team is responsible for maintaining the battery and solar panels of the satellite, ensuring they are functioning as intended, and developing a power budget to ensure that there is always ample power to perform any required operation. To do so, the team must understand the power consumption of each subsystem, as well as simulate the satellite's orbit to factor in the power intake provided by solar panels. This information is used to determine the state of charge of the batteries at each point in time.
The hardware subteam is responsible for executing the main mission of the satellite and designing our on board computer (OBC). For ALEASAT, our payload consists of a camera module that will be able to take images of a specifically requested location on Earth and immediately downlink them. The payload module consists of an image sensor PCB, lens and filter assembly, and a micro-controller for processing the sensor output and communicating with the other subsystems.
OBC
ON BOARD COMPUTER
STRUCTURE
The structure team is in charge of designing, manufacturing and assembling the frame and mechanical components of the satellite. The 1U aluminum CubeSat frame houses key mechanical designs like the antenna deployment module and the camera payload. They use simulations to analyze stresses from the satellite's launch environment and thermal cycles in orbit.
The Mission Operations team operates the ALEASAT Mission. Our current focus includes creating
the mission control software, and a web dashboard for mission control. We are also designing and
building the public-facing website for the ALEASAT project.
MOPS
PAYLOAD
The Payload team is responsible for developing and optimizing the camera system used for Earth Observation missions. This includes designing and testing firmware, analyzing camera optics, and simulating the performance of the camera in space. The team works on tuning the camera for optimal performance in orbit, managing large amounts of image data, and ensuring precise image capture to support mission objectives.
