Lights out and away we go: first environmental test at the CSF for team SpaceDot
In brief
At the start of December, Team SpaceDot team, from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, arrived at ESEC-Galaxia in the snowy Ardennes Forest, in Belgium, to heat things up during their first ever test campaign at ESA Academy’s environmental test facility, the CubeSat Support Facility.
In-depth
And heat things up they did, as their test item, an in-house built antenna deployment mechanism (ADM) for their 3U CubeSat (AcubeSAT), uses power from resistors to melt through thin lines made of Dyneema, a material which is also used by fishermen in fishing lines and kite hobbyists. If successfully melted, the lines allow four doors to open, deploying the antenna elements that will enable bi-directional UHF communications with the spacecraft while it is in orbit.
As is good practice with any in-house development making the trip to space, the SpaceDot team had to qualify their design, ensuring not only that their sensitive mechanism would survive intense vibrations without breaking or losing alignment, but also that it would still deploy in extreme cold and hot temperatures after that.
The test was largely a success with the achievement of a post-vibration deployment and even a full deployment at a chilly temperature of -15.0C!
“It was scary to see our mechanism being constantly abused, but this made us even happier when it survived all the tests,” said a member of the SpaceDot team.
As in every test campaign, issues presented themselves, but through excellent teamwork, the SpaceDot team found solutions to overcome the problems and will take home a list of ideas and improvements for the future, as they progress through the milestones of the Fly Your Satellite! programme.
Altogether, it was a good learning experience, with the team finding out first-hand about the importance of good procedures and good communication during the five-day test campaign.
As one of the members of the team eloquently put it, “This was a very exciting opportunity for us and also for the team as a whole. We hope to only continue to increase our confidence in our design.”
The next campaign for the SpaceDot team at the CSF will be the qualification of their in-house onboard computer and attitude control system PCB, in the first quarter of 2023. Stay tuned!