Deployment

Author: Alexander Doknjas

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. Since then the team has been hard at work commissioning the satellite and ensuring everything is operational.

ORCASat and LORIS satellites shortly after deployment from the Nanoracks CubeSat Deployer on the International Space Station

We are extremely proud to report that so far, everything is working near-perfect and has exceeded everyone’s expectations for a student-built satellite. Commissioning will continue on for the next week or two as we attempt to detumble the satellite and put it into nadir-pointing mode, all while carefully monitoring the telemetry to ensure everything is working as expected.

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue commissioning and start payload operations!