UPSat – the first open source hardware and software satellite is delivered (opens in new tab)

Great project!

The overview doesn't really say what the satellite is for, so I went digging. It looks like you have two payloads, the https://www.qb50.eu/ system for analysing the thin plasma of the upper atmosphere and a 5MP imager (essentially a cellphone camera in space)?

How do you handle comms to ground - do you have to rent time on ground stations or do you have your own?

I quite like the use of multiple STM32F4 microcontrollers, one per subsystem. Are they special spacegrade ones or "regular"?

What does it actually do, i.e. what is it's mission?

I couldn't find this info anywhere on the website.

Hello, and congrats on the project. Could you provide a brief overview as to how does one actually launch the satellite into space? Is there a company that does this, what kind of permits/certifications/etc are needed, etc?

Will there be a hardened version? Shielded from laser attacks, EMI attacks, projectiles, explosives, etc?

How do you actually _do_ the simulations/testing for various scenarios?

Thanks!

indeed this is the Yes!Delft cleanroom :)

Launch is scheduled for 30th of Dec 2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_CRS_OA-7

Yes you will be able to receive telemetry. Check satnogs-client for how you can set it up! https://github.com/satnogs/satnogs-client

Two common options are magneto-torque rods that that use the earth's magnetic field or reaction wheels that spin masses up and down to provide torques to provide attitude control. They've documented their attitude systems btw on the site [1] it's magneto-torques and a "spin torquer" which I hadn't heard of but looks like it's another type of magnetic attitude control.

[1] https://upsat.gr/?page_id=26

If elkos doesn't answer, according to some research I did, 'reaction wheels' are mostly used for changing attitude, and attitude is measured using either star tracking or sunray angle measurement.

One source: http://bluecanyontech.com/portfolio-posts/cubesatsystems/

Note: I'm not particularly familiar with CubeSat development other than being very curious about it.

I would love to know this too. Also, in general, could you talk a bit about other possible 'avionic' systems in the satellite?

The menu of the linked post has an entry named 'Source' which points to:

https://github.com/librespacefoundation?query=upsat

I found a page for 2009 that breaks down the cost of a generic educational cubesat down. It includes the ability to do attitude control and a camera and it came to ~52k including launch costs. It's probably fallen since then.

http://www.satmagazine.com/story.php?number=602922274

Yes, those trapezoid looking black things on the sides are solar panels.

It surely has onboard batteries as well.