Aalto Satellites

Aalto Satellites tiimi järjestää Winter Satellite Workshop tapahtumaa jo kuudennen kerran. Tervetuloa mukaan.

Winter Satellite Workshop 2024 Winter Satellite Workshop is the largest space technology meeting in Finland and in the larger region. It brings together space tech specialists of the area to discuss current topics in rapidly developing space field. The scope is set on New Space, small satellite missions, small satellite platform....

The radiocommunication system of Foresail-1 works on 437.125MHz amateur frequency, the transmit power is 1W/30dBm with a bitrate of 9600b/s. Skylink is the communication protocol made uniquely for the Foresail project. It provides reliable and error corrected data over radiolink.

Foresail-1 launch is getting nearer🤩 The lift-off is happening today at 21:27 Finnish time on SpaceX's Falcon-9 🚀 Follow our Twitter and Instagram for more updates from our engineers in Cape Canaveral, Florida!

The Foresail-1 satellite is equipped with 6 analog and 1 digital sun sensors. They work as a part of the ADCS to detect the Sun’s angle and provide information on the satellite’s attitude. The digital sun sensor is more precise, with an accuracy of roughly 0.1 degrees.

Foresail-1 Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS) was tested by placing a satellite dummy with coils, OBC and necessary software in a Helmholtz cage to simulate the magnetic field, with an air bearing to reduce friction. There different scenarios and complex maneuvers are tested to verify functionality in space.

The On-Board Computer (OBC) of Foresail-1 is a cold redundant FreeRTOS based board computer which performs both satellite command & data handling and executes attitude control algorithms.

Foresail-1 satellite has been delivered to our launch services provider Exolaunch !🤩 From there, the satellite will continue its journey towards Florida and SpaceX from where it will we launched to space next summer🚀

The Electrical Power System (EPS) onboard Foresail-1 has many functions: it produces power for the whole satellite, protects the payloads and other subsystems from disturbances in power, collects telemetry and sends it to the OBC, and deploys the antennas at the beginning of the mission.

The power is generated by four 6-7 cell solar panels and stored in a battery pack consisting of four 18650 lithium-ion batteries. The EPS is custom made for Foresail satellites in Aalto University to withstand harsh space environment and power requirements of scientific payloads.

The camera onboard Foresail-1 is a regular RPi camera with a wide angle lens. The purpose of the camera is to take a picture of the plasma brake’s end mass and thus verify the deployment had been successful. The second picture is taken by the camera inside the spacelab.

MATTI is a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components based precision magnetometer onboard the Foresail-1 satellite. It is designed by Aalto University, and its primary objective is to demonstrate the performance achieved by a COTS components based design. Additionally, MATTI works as a learning platform for Foresail-2 🛰

The plasma brake by the Finnish Meteorological Institute is the secondary payload of -1 satellite. It is designed to lower the ’s altitude. Such capability is needed for deorbiting of satellites, to address the increasing problem of orbital debris.

An early version of plasma brake flew with -1 satellite in 2017, but did not manage to fully operate due to some electronics-related technical issues. The plasma brake of Foresail-1 is a redesigned version.

Its tether is a so-called 4-wire Hoytether and it was made at FMI by a new method based on wire twisting. The method is simple and robust and applicable to many wire materials.

The Particle Telescope (PATE) provided by Turun yliopisto is the main payload of -1 . The goal of PATE is to give better understanding about the dynamics of the radiation environment in , and thus help to be optimised for their radiation tolerance in space.

PATE consists of two stacks of solid-state detectors, which convert ionising particle radiation — electrons and ions — to electronic signals. These signals are used to measure the flux of particles in space as a function of energy and direction.

The Foresail-1 satellite will leave the spacelab in a few weeks! This means a lot of final testing and ensuring everything works. Today was the final bakeout and acceptance thermal cycling in TVAC.

Testing the -1 antennas today in the anechoic chamber!🤩

Acceptance vibration test for -1 in the Exolaunch deployer 🤩🛰 we are getting ready for !🌌

The two payloads of -1 PATE from and plasma brake from arrived to the lab! Here is the perfect look to the inside of the flight model.

FORESAIL-1 is a satellite mission of Finnish Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Space and it is nearly ready for launch!🚀

The satellite is designed and built in Aalto University and it has two payloads: particle telescope (PATE) by the University of Turku and deorbiting plasma brake device from Finnish Metrological institute 🛰

Hello from the -3 team! We are here at the Finnish Workshop 2020, come and meet the team and see the !

The Aalto-3 team is now back at Aalto University after a great week at the ESA Education's Selection Workshop at . A special thank you for all the people working at ESA - European Space Agency who made this week possible for all the participating teams 🛰️

It was an honour to present our Aalto-3 –The Open Source Student CubeSat Mission at the ESA Education's Fly Your Satellite 3 Selection Workshop at . We got a lot of valuable feedback from the ESA - European Space Agency's Evaluation Panel, and will be taking the lessons learned back home to further improve our and the overall . A special thank you to the whole ESA staff and evaluation panel, and of course to our hardworking ! 🛰 Aalto University

The Aalto-3 team ready at the airport and heading to Amsterdam 🛰 Next week we will represent our at the ESA Education's Fly Your Satellite 3 Selection at . Aalto University

The Aalto-3 team prepared today for the upcoming ESA Education's Fly Your 3 Selection Workshop which will be taking place in already next week! Today the team got their official / hoodies as well 🛰 PS. Notice the latest 3D printed structure prototype of our on the table! Aalto University

We did it! Congratulations to the whole Aalto-3 team! The Aalto-3 Open Source Student Satellite has been selected and invited to participate in the ESA Education's Selection Workshop of the Fly Your Satellite Program! This is the final phase before the participating teams are selected to the FYS Programme, and the Aalto-3 team members are preparing for the journey to the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands which is taking place on the second week of December.

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ESA - European Space Agency Aalto University

PS. Paxi, we missed You!

The Aalto-3 workshop goes on! 🌠
The whole team gathering to get the project up to space! 🛰️ Aalto University

Exactly one year ago our team got their first team mugs, and to celebrate this anniversary our Project Manager decided to surprise the whole team with updated team mugs for every team member. We are grateful once again to Tunnin Kuva for sponsoring our Aalto-3 Team with these fantastic team mugs! A special thanks go to our contact person Lauri Kuparinen @ Tunnin Kuva Ateneuminkuja with whom we drafted a few versions to get the colors and details correct.

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Do check their website at http://tunninkuva.fi/kuvat-netista-nouto-liikkeesta.html

The Aalto-3 satellite is a 1 U CubeSat 🛰️