On December 29th, at 05:45 PST, ORCASat was deployed into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) from the International Space Station via the Nanoracks CubeSat Deployer. A little over an hour later at 6:57 PST, the team successfully made the first contact with ORCASat from the UVic ground station
Read MoreThe ground station antenna system is a key component of the ORCASat satellite communication system. It features two large rotating Yagi antennas on a complex mechanical support system. After much testing near roof level, on December 17, 2022 the day has finally arrived to install the antenna in its final location, on top of the West Tower of the UVic Propagation Laboratory.
Read MoreAfter years of hard work and various unexpected delays ORCASat’s launch was finally confirmed on CRS-26, a commercial resupply mission to the ISS operated by SpaceX.
Read MoreA critical test to perform before launch of satellite is an end-to-end Over-The-Air (OTA) test to confirm the link works all the way from the mission control software to the satellite with the ground station and free space in between.
Read MoreWe recorded the final 17 hours of the assembly process and after 2 weeks of editing together the 800 GB of footage, we have made the final assembly time lapse. We have provided as much detail as possible while cutting a lot of the mundane and repetitive steps such as applying threadlocker/epoxy, power-on tests, fit checks, cleaning, and inspection.
Read MoreWe did it! We knew it was going to be a tremendous amount of work to assemble and test ORCASat for spaceflight, and it was still more work than anyone expected. The weekends, evenings, and midnight hours our team has put in has not gone to waste. We successfully built ORCASat, and now it's been integrated into the Nanoracks CubeSat Deployer (NRCSD) for its short trip to the International Space Station. Once it arrives, ORCASat along with LORIS (Dalhousie's satellite), will be ejected into Low Earth Orbit. Soon after the orbit insertion, we will be attempting to make first contact with our (hopefully) operational satellite!
Read MoreIn order to use ORCASat to precisely calibrate telescopes when ORCASat is in orbit, we will need to know exactly how much light ORCASat emits, at any given time when a telescope observes it. Thus, the light output of ORCASat’s two laser diode light sources – as well as the onboard light monitoring, via ORCASat’s two onboard photodiodes – must be precisely calibrated! This laboratory optical calibration has now been performed at a national standards lab – specifically, at NRC’s spectroradiometric calibration facilities, located within NRC’s Montreal Rd. campus in Ottawa.
Read MoreThe team has returned from Ottawa after vibration testing the flight and prototype spacecraft. The testing was performed at the National Research Council Canada (NRC) Flight Research Lab. The test used the hard mount configuration, with the CubeSat deployer provided by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The test profile is Nanoracks hybrid spacecraft-battery test profile, as we tested both the spacecraft and battery in one test. This profile is much more extreme than the typical hard mount profile.
Read MoreHi, meet the ORCASat family, which consists of the flight spacecraft (the actual ORCASat) and its little brother, the prototype spacecraft. Both satellites shown here have been successfully vibration tested and the flight unit has had its payload calibrated and all tests successfully executed. The flight unit is ready for space flight, and the team could not be more excited!
Read MoreAfter a final push to finish assembly, ORCASat is off for vibration testing at the National Research Council (NRC) in Ottawa! This is the first time the flight version of ORCASat has been fully assembled. After months of meticulous planning, mock assemblies, and tests, the spacecraft as a whole is ready to tackle this important challenge.
Read MoreWith the final, flight candidate version of the antenna now available, the antenna testing was revisited again. This time, instead of the makeshift in-house facilities, the decision was made to get the antenna professionally evaluated, at a suitable anechoic chamber. For this, Antenna Test Lab Co. of Raleigh, NC, was selected in the USA, due to the affordability and rapid turnaround of their services. The purpose of this test was as follows:
Read MoreThe ORCASat ground station consists of two aluminum antennas (VHF, UHF) which are almost 20’ long. They will be mounted on top of the Engineering Lab Wing at UVic, which exposes them to the risk of lightning. In the event of a storm, huge impulses of energy from nearby lightning strikes may couple into the antennas, or lightning may even strike the antennas directly.
Read MoreORCASat has 6 body-mounted panels that make up the exterior of the spacecraft body. 5 of these panels are solar panels, which feature AZUR SPACE triple junction GaAs solar cells. These cells are 30% efficient and produce ~1.2 W each under peak illumination conditions.
Read MoreIn a previous update we covered the necessity of a frequency license for the success of the ORCASat mission, and the significance of receiving an approval in principle from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED). An approval in principle is not sufficient for flight, a radio license based on this approval is required.
Read MoreLast week, we finished coating our remaining integrating spheres with Avian-B. With these spheres painted, we are able to continue on with the assembly of our flight and prototype payload units. Avian-B is a special kind of coating which reflects over 98% of the light produced by our payload’s lasers.
Read MoreThe ORCASat battery pack is special as it uses a novel battery chemistry that as far as we know, has never been used for spaceflight before. The battery pack along with the rest of the Electrical Power System is designed, manufactured, and tested in-house at UVic.
Read MoreAfter a long testing campaign, and many lessons learned in the process, a second revision of the ORCASat spacecraft radio has been designed to implement all the improvements and changes required to make the updated design suitable for flight on ORCASat.
Read MoreTwo antennas selected for the ground station were kindly provided to ORCASat by Peter Driessen. However, they were not in good condition and needed refurbishment as any deviation from factory condition degrades performance. Refurbishment involves replacing or repairing all the bent antenna elements, replacing corroded fasteners, adding aluminum antioxidant (Noalox) on all aluminum joints, and re-waterproofing all the RF connectors.
Read MoreOn March 10th the first TT&C outdoor test was completed. The objective of this test is to demonstrate the ability of all components of the TT&C subsystem to work together as a complete end to end satellite communication system for ORCASat, and evaluate the performance of the ORCASat antenna compared to a simple half wavelength dipole.
Read MoreLast month we successfully assembled the first ORCASat payload. This is a prototype unit, but we are confident that we could fly with it if needed. We are planning on assembling the flight unit later this month which will have a few minor improvements. We put together a video slideshow of the assembly process.
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