Contact Us
Corso Duca Degli Abruzzi 24, Turin, Italy 10129
cubesat.team@polito.it
OUR PROJECTS
Current Project
3U CubeSat Mission
We want to develop a mission that can contribute to improving the study of climate change, as we are driven by a strong and valid motivation justified by a complete and comprehensive analysis of the State of the Art.
Thanks to an Optical payload installed on a 3U CubeSat we will be able to collect useful informations for this cause
CubeSat Control Centre (C3)
CubeSat Control Centre (C3) is a project concerning the design and implementation of a Ground Station (GS) operated by students and non-professional operators to support the CubeSat missions developed by Politecnico di Torino and beyond.
The C3 project aims to satisfy a multiple purpose. On the other hand, it plays a role, allowing students to put their knowledge and skills into practice in the design of space missions in all their phases.
Furthermore, C3 allows the CubeSat Polito Team to directly support its missions, without the need for external mediators.
The communication system includes three lines: VHF and UHF in half-duplex and the S-Band in full-duplex. The baseband processing server processes the signal and sends it to the Software Defined Radio (SDR) which translates the digital signal into Electromagnetic waves.
Each communication line is composed of two stages of signal power amplifier that connect the SDR with the cluster of antennas and vice-versa
SROC
Space Rider Observer Cube (SROC) is a Space rider (SR) capable in-situ observation mission. Space Rider is a new transportation system developed by Thales Alenia Space for the European Space Agency. During the mission, SROC will be brought into orbit as part of the experiments abroad Space Rider and will be deployed in orbit.
SROC mission has 3 main objectives:
- Orbit around Space Rider to make multiple observations of operating conditions.
- Demonstrate the feasibility of operations and critical technologies for small satellites, such as the release into orbit and reentry into cargo bay of Space Rider.
- Phase 0/A of of the SROC mission were supported by students member of Cubesat Team of the Politecnico di Torino.
CubeSat Advanced Simulator and Testbench (CAST)
The aim of the CubeSat Advanced Simulator and Testbench (CAST) project is to create an integrated environment, necessary to support the design, assembly, integration and validation phases, allowing the verification procedures to be carried out throughout the life cycle of the elements to be tested. It will allow to exploit all the advantages associated with the cubesat standard, reducing time and costs thank to its modular architecture.
In addition, high flexibility will also be guaranteed with respect to a large number of different objects to be tested. The system will also act as a multi-purpose simulator with hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) verification tecniques.
CAST consist of 4 main elements:
- Control Centre (CC)
- Main board system
- Frictionless table system
- Sun Simulator system
Past Project
ESA-µPROP
ESA-µProp is a 6U and 12U CubeSat platform designed to carry out tests and measurements, in a simulated space environment, on the mutual interactions between the electric propulsion system and the subsystems of the satellite on which it is mounted. Following the integration of an electric propulsion system with the platform, the model will be placed in a vacuum chamber at the European Space Agency’s electric propulsion laboratory. Here it will perform a series of flight tests, while the platform itself and other ground instruments will acquire further data.
Subsystem:
- The Command and Data Handling runs the test program and acquires data relating to temperatures, radio frequency levels, current variations and magnetic fields through sensors distributed within the main structure.
- The High Power Management System is responsible for managing the power supply and can deliver up to 50 Watts to electric propulsion system.
E-ST@R-II
E-ST@R-II was the the second CubeSat mission carried out by the CubeSat Team of the Politecnico di Torino.
The mission was developed as part of ESA Fly your Satellite! program. launched in 2016 from the Kourou Space Center (KSC). The main cargo of this launch was Sentinel-1B of the Copernicus and Microscope program designed by Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES).
The primary mission objective was demonstrate CubeSat’s active attitude Determination and control capability through the design, development and on-orbit verification of an active system. For this purpose the A-ADCS payload that includes control avionic, software and a set of magnetic sensors and actuators consisting of COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) and systems developed by the team has been integrated.
The E-ST@R-II mission presents a classical architecture, to ensure global coverage, it was decided to transmit “in the clear” so that the worldwide amateur radio community could have support the satellite operations and increase the amount of data received from orbit.
Even today in orbit, some hams pick up a few signals!!!
E-ST@R-I
In 2008,the CubeSat Polito Team started the design of its first Cubesat 1U mission, E-ST@R-I, with the purpose of giving hands-on experience to university students and to demonstrate the capability of the team to manage a complete CubeSat mission.
E-ST@R-I was eligible for the European Space Agency (ESA) Education Office initiative, and after four years of design and production, it was the first Italian CubeSat to be launched into space, taking advantage of the inaugural flight of the VEGA launcher on 13/02/2012, from the Kourou Space Center in French Guiana. As for on-orbit operations, the first contact with the satellite was established one day after launch. However the contact was intermittent and the telemetry packets were not fully decoded.
However we can state that it was the first Italian Educational CubeSat launched into space.