OSCAR QUBE pass the Preliminary Design Review

The team, composed of students from Hasselt University (Belgium), was selected last March to develop an experiment which aims to map the Earth's magnetic field using the quantum state of the nitrogen vacancies in diamond.

After having worked hard to complete the numerous deliverables requested during the preliminary design phase, while showing an exemplary attitude to the university to maintain access to the laboratories despite the pandemic, the team delivered a Preliminary Design Review Data Package this summer. 

The review panel, made up of experts from ESA, Space Applications Services and ZARM, then revised the documents and shared mandatory recommendations with the team. These inputs are a valuable aid for the student team, which has to build a payload that meets the International Space Station’s requirements. After exchanges between the team and the experts in order to close all the actions associated to the aforementioned recommendations, the close-out meeting was held last Wednesday, sealing the end of the Preliminary Design Phase.

This meeting also marked the beginning of the next stage: Phase C, the Detailed Design Phase. During this stage, OSCAR-QUBE will have to freeze the design of its experiment, as well as the processes for the manufacturing, assembly, integration and testing operations, that will be eventually carried out in Phase D.

The team, which is very proactive, has already manufactured a test bench model to separately test the subsystems. The students are now working on a first assembled model to verify that the design solutions currently selected meet the numerous scientific and technological requirements. 

Once again, the evaluation board congratulates the Team OSCAR-QUBE for the great work!