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.