STUDENTS: LAUNCHING CUBESATS!

Introduction to the Project

PROJECT HORUS

Remote Sensing for Agriculture

Effect of drought on wheat crops in Western Australia

Importance of Satellites to Australia

Weather Forecasting Communications

Jabiru-2 communications Satellite – late 2014

CubeSats compared to Satellites

Satellites

Can be big - size of bus

Can be expensiveMulit-millions to billions of dollars for interplanetary missions

Usually has its own rocket for launching

CubeSats

Small – cube 10cm on one side and usually weighs about 1kg

Made of off the shelf electronics

A full space launch of a CubeSat is about $100,000, although space agencies do offer free launches

Piggy-backs on a launch vehicle

1U CubeSat in space (10cm on side) Launch mass 1kgNASA Aqua Satellite4.81m x 16.70m x 8.04m, Launch mass 2,934kg

High altitude balloon launches can reach heights of over 30km – a third of the way to space and very much cheaper than a full space launch!

Sometimes balloon launches can be used for unusual objects

Yoyo in space Chair in Space!

High Altitude Balloons as Launch Vehicles

And you can do this as well!

In this project you will fly your own CubeSat on a high altitude balloon and take your own spectacular pictures!

Technical or engineering aspects such as launch parameters and correct operation of the payload

Scientific aspects – what useful experiments/observations can be done using the equipment available

CubeSat Project

Your brief is to design, develop and fly your CubeSat, using a high-altitude balloon as your launch vehicle and undertake experiments that you will design and analyse

You need to take into account:

Sometimes there is conflict between technical and scientific aspects

GoPro camera can be aligned in a number of ways but because of stacking of CubeSats only bottom CubeStat can have camera pointing down – which direction other cameras and why?

Memory card – how much data can be stored?

Matching GPS data with images

Some Design Issues

Plus others that you will find out about as you go through the design process!