ZEUS

Right, so what exactly is our experiment? Here is a very brief explanation of exactly what our experiment will be doing while our team are floating around in micro-gravity.

We are working on femto-satellites, and more specifically, the Attitude Control System (ACS) of these satellites. Femto-sats are very, VERY small (think of a large smartwatch, without the strap) and most modern propulsions systems are WAY too big for them. So it’s a challenge trying to control the position and direction of these femto-sats. The method we are using involves switching small electromagnets on and off, and in orbit, these electromagnets interact with the Earth’s magnetic field and rotate the femto-sat so that it can point in the direction we want it to. Since we want to accelerate the process a bit, we will be generating our own (stronger) artificial magnetic field inside the aircraft. Using this magnetic field under micro-gravity conditions will allow us to see whether our satellites can perform the manoeuvres we want them to, without gravity getting in the way.

Next, from way up in the Highlands of Aberdeenshire in Scotland, we have Oliver. Oliver’s PhD is on photonic neuromorphics. Nope, we have no idea what that means either. He tells us that it involves getting light to think so we don’t have to, and we have decided to take his word for it. Oliver has actually worked with one of our team members, Cameron, in the past, as part of the University of Glasgow’s Formula Student racing team. He proved very effecting in keeping Cameron’s blinky lights blinking, so we’re glad to have him onboard. Although free time is a precious commodity, when he does get some time off, he loves to be out in the mountains, enjoying the snow. Oliver will be working on our camera/visual tracking system (stay tuned for more details on how that will work) and is interested to learn whether seasickness applies to parabolic flights 🤢 We certainly hope not, Oliver! Welcome to the team.

We’ve made some changes to the team! Let us introduce you to our new members.

Maura is a PhD candidate working in the area of robotic surgery but is more generally interested in precision mechatronics. She has experience working on attitude control systems via her undergrad thesis and working as Team Leader in GU Orbit – UofG’s microsatellite society. In her free time, she likes to paint, play videogames – mainly Crusader Kings and Football manager – but also going walking and exploring Scotland. Maura will be working to develop our femto-satellite magnetorquers, as well as our deployer system, and she is looking forward to gaining more design and manufacturing experience, as well as getting a chance to operate the experiment she will be helping to build. She brings to the team a persistent approach to problem solving, as well as a determination to keep solving problems, no matter how many times she (or Cameron) breaks something 😂 Also, not to mention, fabulous hair.
Welcome to the team, Maura!

Our project is a part of ESA’s program Fly Your Thesis. Each year FYT supports student teams in conducting their experiments in microgravity. We are very excited to be part of this family and get to know amazing engineers for ESA Education and Novespace as well as all the students from DZH Dynamics and LEOniDAS FYT. Hopefully one day you will see a picture of our team floating around our experiment which we will introduce in the next post.

Picture: ESA

Would you like to know more about ZEUS project? If so, make sure to follow the next few posts where we will give you some more details.

ZEUS is a part of Emerging Space Technologies research program at the University of Glasgow. Part of the program focuses on development of technologies supporting femto-satellites. During evaluation of the Attitude Control System (ACS) we discovered that the gravity stands in a way of a lot of tests! Luckily there is a way to test our femto-satellites without the gravity impact. This is possible thanks to ESA - European Space Agency 0g flight campaign and we will test the ACS on board of a Novespace plane. Our satelites will be floating in microgravity and inside of the Helmholtz cage while testing the attitude control system onboard. Of course our team is planning to float around as well.

Fun fact: one of the Novespace pilots is an active ESA astronaut. Do you want to guess which one😊?

Photo: ESA

They did it! Congratulations to NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration on this exhilarating achievement. We are very excited to see the science and technological demonstrations in the coming days. Go Percy! NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover

Yesterday marks a week since the conclusion of a socially distanced 2021 Gravity-Related Experiments Training Week (GRETW21), an event organised by the ESA - European Space Agency for the teams behind the experiments selected for this year's various low-gravity research programmes: , , .

The event began with each team presenting their experiment, and it was great to get to know a little more about our colleagues and their research endeavours. We then took part in sessions focused on essential skills needed to successfully carry out our experiments, such as and . Last but definitely not least, we had the pleasure of listening in on fantastic lectures given by ESA Astronaut Jean-François Clervoy and the University of Glasgow's Professor Martin Hendry.

A huge shoutout to all the speakers and participants involved in the event, and to ESA - European Space Agency for organising it in such great manner despite the challenges posed by the on-going Covid-19 situation. We're sad that we couldn't meet in person, but we know this is temporary, so we'll keep looking forward to meeting all of you in person one day!

Make sure you check out some of our colleagues' experiments:
MIND Gravity
LEOniDAS FYT
Team Forte
The Levitators

And if you wish to find out more about the GRETW21, we know just the place for you:
https://www.esa.int/Education/ESA_Academy/Gravity-Related_Experiments_Training_Week_2021_concludes_as_student_projects_officially_start

Last but not least, let us introduce Dorota.

Dorota, from Poland, is working towards her Mechanical Engineering PhD focused on topologically optimized compliant mechanisms for the Lunar environment. Or in other words “smart bendy things that survive dust”. Dorota has launched a DREAM Project experiment on a sounding rocket and developed geological sampling equipment at ESA’s European Astronaut Center. Now, it is time for Dorota to develop the capture mechanism for our femto-sats. Although Dorota wanted to grow up to be a doctor, today she is a passionate Nutella enthusiast who loves playing Terraforming Mars and snorkeling in the Mediterranean, when it’s allowed. She says she is planning to bring us some team spirit, enthusiasm, and creative problem solving, and we will hold her to that.

Our next team member - Cameron - is a PhD candidate working on fault tolerant algorithms for in-orbit manufacturing. This basically means Cameron is trying to get space 3D printers to stop misbehaving. He has worked in the University of Glasgow Formula Student team and a few other university projects developing compact embedded dataloggers. If you ask him what his work for ZEUS will entail, he will tell you “blinky lights and electromagnets” and this is actually a very accurate description. He likes microcontrollers, video games, and, like any true Glaswegian, pubs. His biggest hidden talent is being able to turn any working device into broken device, so we will need to keep a close eye on him during our project. Cameron says he joined our project to learn more about ESA but we think he just couldn’t say ‘no’ to such goofy team 😊.

Meet our next team member. :)

Stuart is Australian by descent, English by birth, but Scottish at heart. He is doing his PhD on Inverse Simulation as a Fault Tolerant Control Method for Planetary Rovers (it’s just space go-karts). In the past he was also involved in designing a line-following quadcopter controller for a MathWorks competition. He likes wild camping, parkour, archery, and Chris Hadfield (but who doesn’t like Chris?!). Stuart’s hidden talent is the ability to speak some basic Scottish Gaelic, and we suspect he might secretly be a druid. He is looking forward to being able to go snowboarding in the Alps with his sister. He is also looking forward to learning about preparing aerospace missions with our team and with ESA. He brings some levity, passion, and perfectionism to our team, so we feel very lucky to have him onboard 😊.

We think it is about time you meet the team behind project. Let us start by introducing our team leader Liviu.

Liviu comes from Romania and as a child wanted to be captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Instead, he is now a PhD candidate doing research on and for Micro-Space Systems (meaning: convincing tiny in orbit to stop spinning like crazy). He has experience with experiments where he worked on cameras identifying ’s and he has also been part of designing a flexible aircraft simulation inside a game engine. In his free time, he likes doing almost anything – playing video games, sports, playing guitar, singing, reading, and also talking about all of it (he talks a lot 😊). During our project Liviu wants to learn how to be a fantastic manager and honestly, he already convinced us that he’s up to the task, otherwise we wouldn’t have signed up to his team 😅.