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elkos
Hey there, UPSat team member here. If you have any questions for the team I would be more than happy to answer them of relay them to the team.
jmiserez
What does it actually do, i.e. what is it's mission?

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

elkos
It's part of the QB50 project aiming to collect data from thin plasma in thermosphere.
pjc50
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"?

elkos
That's right we have two payloads a QB50 subsystem to analyse thin plasma and an imager

Comms are handled via the SatNOGS project open satellite project

STM32F4 aren't special spacegrade but they have already being used successfully in other cubesats

grandalf
Will there be a hardened version? Shielded from laser attacks, EMI attacks, projectiles, explosives, etc?
pjc50
There's no sensible way to shield a satellite from projectiles at orbital velocity.
grandalf
I wonder about the other risks. What do you think is the most effective way to disable a satellite? (And correspondingly, the best way to keep one safe?)
ralmeida
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?
thewisenerd
How do you actually _do_ the simulations/testing for various scenarios?
xylo
Is it solar powered?
Alupis
Yes, those trapezoid looking black things on the sides are solar panels.

It surely has onboard batteries as well.

LeonM
Ha! My first thought on opening the page was "that cleanroom in the picture looks just like the one we have in Yes!Delft". It's a small world after all...

Congratulations on the milestone!

pierros
Thanks!

indeed this is the Yes!Delft cleanroom :)

shraken
What do you use for attitude control? Are your design files and software on a public repository?
ralmeida
I would love to know this too. Also, in general, could you talk a bit about other possible 'avionic' systems in the satellite?
ralmeida
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.

rtkwe
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

IgorPartola
So what is the cost of this thing? How much will it take for me to put something like a Raspberry Pi in orbit?