Founded in 2010, we are the UMSATS CubeSat division, an interdisciplinary team of undergraduate and graduate students dedicated to designing and building a 3U nanosatellite. Each design cycle, we compete in the Canadian Satellite Design Challenge (CSDC). Our satellite TSAT-4 secured first prize in the fourth iteration of the competition. We followed that success with TSAT-6, which achieved joint first place in the sixth CSDC. We are currently working on continuing this success with TSAT-7, our most ambitious satellite so far.

Competition

The Canadian Satellite Design Challenge (CSDC) is a Canada-wide competition which welcomes university design teams from across the country. Teams compete with the intention of designing, building, testing, and launching their 3U CubeSat into low Earth orbit. The competition has three phases: Preliminary Design Review (PDR), Critical Design Review (CDR), and Final Environmental Testing. This competition runs on a 2-year cycle and is currently in its seventh iteration.

Subsystems

Payload

The Payload subsystem is responsible for the satellite's scientific experiment. The experiment on the latest CubeSat, TSAT-7, is characterizing the growth of Anabaena cylindrica (blue-green algae) in low Earth orbit. This experiment will provide insight into how the micro-gravity and radiation environment affects growth. The purpose of this experiment is to explore the applications of Anabaena cylindrica as bio-reactors in life support systems for long-duration space flights.

ADCS

The Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS) is responsible for controlling the orientation of the satellite in space as it undergoes low Earth orbit. The subsystem uses a variety of sensor readings to determine the current orientation of the satellite. The subsystem then drives actuators to orient the satellite in such a way that it fulfils the mission pointing requirements. This is accomplished by using a complex software algorithm to convert sensor readings to actuator outputs.