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 Advisors
The development of a satellite and ensuring that a student team is functioning properly takes a lot of resoures and planning. To help make critical decisions and give advice on design issues, UBC Orbit is grateful to have all the following advisors.
ADMIN
The admin 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.
ADCS
ATTITUDE DETERMINATION AND CONTROL
CDH
COMMAND AND DATA HANDLING
The CDH sub-system is essentially the brain of the satellite, as it deals with carrying out commands from ground station, compiling satellite-wide data, and monitoring and responding to any system failures. For the Aspectu satellite, CDH developed an inexpensive on-board computer, known as Trillium, that can self-handle radiation-induced upsets. Implementing the concept of Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR), the system contains three micro-controllers (MCUs) that continuously compare their data with each other.
The COMMS 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.
