University of Saskatchewan students send satellite to space | 24CA News
It’s not day by day a faculty challenge will get despatched to area, however for college students from the University of Saskatchewan, their very own satellite tv for pc has formally left the Earth’s ambiance.
The college students concerned labored for 5 years on their RADSAT-SK CubeSat.
A CubeSat is a category of miniaturized satellites, measuring roughly 10 cm by 10 cm by 10 cm. Students say the satellite tv for pc carries two experiments involving area radiation and was launched into orbit a month in the past by a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket.
Just this week, the satellite tv for pc was launched from the International Space Station.
“It’s kind of unreal,” stated Dustin Preece, a CubeSat challenge scholar and the technical supervisor. “Just to see the thermal tape on there, glimmer in the sun every once in a while. That was really cool.”
The CubeSat will check a brand new low cost radiation measuring system, and a radiation shielding epoxy made out of melanin.
While the challenge took 5 years to get off the bottom, it felt like a short while for Preece.
“There was so much to do and at times the days blurred together,” he stated. “It’s been an amazing journey and I’m just very grateful to have been part of it.”
Preece stated CubeSats are far cheaper to launch than conventional satellites resulting from their dimension, making such tasks extra accessible for universities.
The satellite tv for pc is a part of the Canadian CubeSat Project that began in 2018, involving greater than 2,000 college students throughout Canada. Its purpose is to spice up curiosity in science, expertise, engineering and arithmetic whereas involving college students in actual area missions.
“(It’s) a very exciting moment for students in Canada who wish and dream of working in the space industry,” Tony Pellerin, a Canadian Space Agency (CSA) supervisor and technical lead of the challenge stated in a current interview.
The RADSAT was designed and developed on the University of Saskatchewan.
“Once we tested it, we took it to Montreal to the Canadian Space Agency headquarters,” Preece stated. “And it launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.”
“For now, it’s an academic project and we’ll see where it goes,” he defined. “Hopefully it does help the radiation industry, the nuclear industry and the space industry too.”
Preece hopes tasks like this proceed to return out of Saskatchewan, and says he needs to proceed growing and sending satellites into area.
“We’re proud to represent Saskatchewan, and we want to expand Saskatchewan’s presence in the aerospace and the space industry,” Preece stated. “It’s just been a privilege to be on this journey with everyone.”
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