OUR TEAM

Our team is made up of several sub-teams, both technical and administrative, who work together and make things happen. Where do you see yourself?

Project Management

Project Managers are familiar with the design and validation processes required for spacecraft. They ensure project timelines and budgets are met and direct the club according to the policies set by the CSDC Management Society, ESS, and UVIC.

Systems Engineering

The system engineering team designs the spacecraft from a high level standpoint. In other words, they aren’t experts in any specific subsystem, but understand the capabilities, limitations, and interfaces between each one. The system design results from subsystem requirements that are defined such that the culmination of them results in a spacecraft that meets mission requirements. 

Administration

Administration ensures that all other aspects of the club are running smoothly. They make decisions which improve the logistics of a student club. Not an easy task, and incredibly important. Their responsibilities include making industry relationships and finding sponsorships, applying for grants, financial recording and reporting, organizing recruitment campaigns across faculties, content creation, and outreach.

Mechanical

The mechanical team is responsible for designing the body of the spacecraft, and integrating all of the physical components required by the other subsytems. Primary design problems include dissipation of heat generated by electronic components in vaccum, and vibrational analysis for the survivability of the delicate hardware inside of the satellite during launch. Additionally, the mechanical team will need to design custom mechanisms for the deployment of any deployable spacecraft components, such as antenna systems or payload components. 

Telemetry, Tracking, and Command

TT&C deals with the wireless communications system both on the spacecraft and the ground. Any commands or data that pass between the spacecraft and groundstation are captured by the TT&C subsystem. The team works with communications theory, RF hardware, DSP, and more on a daily basis.

Attitude Determination and Control

Command and Data Handling

The CD&H team is responsbile for the design and development of the satellites onboard computer (OBC), the brains of the spacecraft. The OBC needs to be able to receive commands from the ground, send commands to other subsystems, and make autonomous decisions to control the operation of the satellite, even when it is out of contact with the ground. This subsystem team is also be responsible for developing ground station control and mission operations software for parsing telemetry data from the spacecraft, and scheduling future satellite command sequences. This team works with embedded systems design, operating systems, file systems, among other topics.

Electrical Power System

The EPS team works with Systems Engineering to design a power source that can supply all other subsystems with their required power. The team works with battery chemistries, solar panels, thermal management, hardware design, and more on a daily basis. 

Payload

The payload is the primary reason for the satellite to go to space! All other subsytems exist to support the payload in performing its mission.