
UPSat – the first open source hardware and software satellite is delivered - Dimitris
https://upsat.gr/?p=344
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elkos
Hey there, UPSat team member here. If you have any questions for the team I
would be more than happy to answer them of relay them to the team.

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pjc50
Great project!

The overview doesn't really say what the satellite is _for_ , so I went
digging. It looks like you have two payloads, the
[https://www.qb50.eu/](https://www.qb50.eu/) system for analysing the thin
plasma of the upper atmosphere and a 5MP imager (essentially a cellphone
camera in space)?

How do you handle comms to ground - do you have to rent time on ground
stations or do you have your own?

I quite like the use of multiple STM32F4 microcontrollers, one per subsystem.
Are they special spacegrade ones or "regular"?

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elkos
That's right we have two payloads a QB50 subsystem to analyse thin plasma and
an imager

Comms are handled via the SatNOGS project open satellite project

STM32F4 aren't special spacegrade but they have already being used
successfully in other cubesats

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LeonM
Ha! My first thought on opening the page was "that cleanroom in the picture
looks just like the one we have in Yes!Delft". It's a small world after all...

Congratulations on the milestone!

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pierros
Thanks!

indeed this is the Yes!Delft cleanroom :)

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nacnud
Great work! When (roughly) do you expect it to be launched, and will we be
able to receive signals with a Raspberry Pi + Tv Tuner SDR stick? :)

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pierros
Launch is scheduled for 30th of Dec 2016
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_CRS_OA-7](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_CRS_OA-7)

Yes you will be able to receive telemetry. Check satnogs-client for how you
can set it up! [https://github.com/satnogs/satnogs-
client](https://github.com/satnogs/satnogs-client)

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shraken
What do you use for attitude control? Are your design files and software on a
public repository?

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rtkwe
Two common options are magneto-torque rods that that use the earth's magnetic
field or reaction wheels that spin masses up and down to provide torques to
provide attitude control. They've documented their attitude systems btw on the
site [1] it's magneto-torques and a "spin torquer" which I hadn't heard of but
looks like it's another type of magnetic attitude control.

[1] [https://upsat.gr/?page_id=26](https://upsat.gr/?page_id=26)

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aftbit
Where are the hardware and software sources? :)

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daave
The menu of the linked post has an entry named 'Source' which points to:

[https://github.com/librespacefoundation?query=upsat](https://github.com/librespacefoundation?query=upsat)

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IgorPartola
So what is the cost of this thing? How much will it take for me to put
something like a Raspberry Pi in orbit?

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rtkwe
I found a page for 2009 that breaks down the cost of a generic educational
cubesat down. It includes the ability to do attitude control and a camera and
it came to ~52k including launch costs. It's probably fallen since then.

[http://www.satmagazine.com/story.php?number=602922274](http://www.satmagazine.com/story.php?number=602922274)

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xylo
Is it solar powered?

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Alupis
Yes, those trapezoid looking black things on the sides are solar panels.

It surely has onboard batteries as well.

