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
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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.
