Our missions
European Space Agency Moon Orbiter (ESMO) – 2006-2012
The initial collaboration with the University of Southampton was on the basis that WUSAT would develop the electrical power supply for Southampton’s electric propulsion system that was planned to be the main thruster for ESMO.
This was primarily required due to the need to make a major orbit transfer of the spacecraft from its initial Earth orbit to a polar orbit around the Moon via the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point.
However WUSAT was soon selected as the primary team for the entire satellite electrical supply subsystem. This was fortunate as an early decision was made to use chemical thrusters rather than electrical, so WUSAT retained this major subsystem role when Southampton ended their participation.
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A total of 21 teams from 11 European countries participated in ESMO. Its payload included: a small radar payload, a radiation monitor, a 2.5 kg passive microwave radiometer (temperature of the regolith a few metres below the surface), and a telecommunication experiment to test a lunar internet protocol.
Approximately 40 WUSAT students worked on this project over the six years of its operation.
WUSAT-1 – First CubeSat Prototype – 2012-2013
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WUSAT-1 was a 1U prototype CubeSat. Launched on a high-altitude helium balloon from a CAA approved site near Welshpool. Its payload involved simple instrumentation that was required only to show that it had made a successful flight – i.e. temperature sensor, altitude measurement, and a simple radio-tracking device.
However, one advantage of a balloon launch is that we were able to add additional cameras externally to the CubeSat itself (see Figs. 3 & 4). WUSAT-1 was encapsulated in a polystyrene case and chemical ‘hand-warming’ packs were added immediately before launch in order to protect the electronics against the cold at an altitude of +30,000ft.
The flight was completed successfully with the balloon rising to an altitude of 33,000ft as it drifted eastwards.
At this point, the balloon burst as planned and WUSAT-1 descended to land in a field in Warwickshire approximately 100m from the predicted recovery zone.
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WUSAT-2 – ESA REXUS Launch (2013 – 2015)
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A successful bid was made for the WUSAT-2 mission to be launched via ESA’s 2015 REXUS launch programme. WUSAT-2 was a 1U CubeSat format, but because we were able to design and build our own ejection module, we were not required to maintain exact CubeSat standards.
The payload was a custom made lightspectrometer designed to filter light frequencies in the upper atmosphere and estimate the density of gases such as sodium and O2. Fig. 8 shows that external 3D printed light receptors were fitted, each holding several fibre-optic light sensors that conveyed external light to the spectrometer filters.A key element of this mission was the downlink communications system. As WUSAT2 would descend through the atmosphere at approximately Mach 2, it would bury itself in the arctic tundra north of the Kiruna launch site in Sweden. Hence, it was vital that data obtained from the payload was successfully downloaded. With the assistance of an ESA Communications Engineer, two helical antenna were specially designed for this purpose.
In the event, the launch, deployment, operation and receipt of the data via the communications system was successful as planned. We were informed by ESA engineers that this was the first successful ejected unit in 17 REXUS launches. Hence this was a highly successful outcome for WUSAT.
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WUSAT-3 – 3U CubeSat – Wildlife Tracking Technology from LEO (2015 – Present)
WUSAT-3 is being designed for operation in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) via launch to, and deployment from, the International Space Station (ISS). Its payload will be a novel direction finding technology that will aim to detect and locate signals from tags of the type used for tracking wildlife. If this concept can be proven, it could lead to the development of smaller lighter tags for wildlife monitoring use. This would not only benefit the work of all conservationists involved with wildlife monitoring, but could enable the tagging/monitoring of some wildlife, particularly small bird species, that previously could not cope with the weight/size of radio tags in use.
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As with all previous WUSAT missions, WUSAT-3 has involved the inclusion of a wide range of partner companies, has been conducted with a strong Systems Engineering approach, and has given all student engineers a first-class experience of taking a satellite engineering project through the rigorous process that leads to a launch.
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