Engineering students at the University of Saskatchewan spent five years developing the cube satellite, called RADSAT-SK.
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Being part of a group that developed Saskatchewan’s first homegrown satellite, now just days away from being launched into space, “fulfilled” a life goal, says one of the project managers.
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The launch is scheduled for Saturday on board the SpaceX CRS-28 rocket headed for the International Space Station. Engineering students at the University of Saskatchewan spent five years developing the cube satellite, called RADSAT-SK.
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From the space station, it will be sent into its own orbit for around one year, collecting experimental radiation data from a ground station on the U of S campus.
“Finding out as a student at (the U of S) that I could be a part of a project that would send a research satellite to space was an opportunity that fulfilled one of my life’s earliest goals,” said technical project manager Dustin Preece, who noted that the cube satellite project has been a life-changing experience for him and many others.
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Arliss Sidlowksi, a fourth-year student, said it’s been an incredible and challenging experience getting the Saskatchewan-designed, -tested and -assembled satellite up into orbit.
She said she hopes it will inspire others in Saskatchewan to see themselves working in the space industry.
The project was part of the Canadian Space Agency’s CubeSat project; 15 universities got grants to build miniature satellites to send to space.
Development on the satellite started in the spring of 2018, with around 20 engineering undergraduate students involved, according to Sean Maw, a principal investigator and chair in innovative teaching at the U of S College of Engineering.
In the years since, “the project has grown immensely,” with hundreds of students involved in some capacity, Maw said.
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Creation of the satellite is part of the Canadian Space Agency’s Canadian CubeSat Project (CCP), a program developed by the CSA to increase student interest in science, technology, engineering and math across the country.
U of S electrical and computer engineering professor Li Chen, and Ekaterina Dadachova with the College of Pharmacy and Nutrition, each developed aspects of the project.
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2023-05-29 19:39:24Z
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