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VT RockSat-X 2020 Satellite Payload Design Team

Virginia Tech RockSat-X 2020 Satellite Payload Design Team

VT RockSat-X History Website

The VT RockSat-X team is designing, building, and testing a CubeSat form-factor solar array deployment system to be launched on a NASA sounding rocket this coming August 2020.

This project involves multiple disciplines throughout Virginia Tech's College of Engineering with participants from electrical, mechanical, computer, and aerospace engineering. This project provides students with real-world hands-on experience to learn the stringent design requirements needed to engineer our future space systems.

Our VT RockSat-X program has a storied history with launching successful satellite payloads through the RockSat-X program, and we plan to continue to further this endeavour and put Virginia Tech on the map during this new space age!

RockSat-X Main Program Home Page 

The RockSat-X program gives the students the chance to design, build, and test real satellite payloads. This program offers exposure to creating testing procedures, designing and testing individual subsystems, as well as creating proposals and participating in NASA-led design reviews which require extensive research and preparation beforehand.

Link to our most recent design review (Subsystem Testing Review, STR)
VT RockSat-X Subsystem Testing Review Presentation,  STR 

We plan to use the solar array deployment mechanism we are developing in future VT satellite orbiting missions, as well as other CubeSat missions, to provide the means for powering mission defined subsystems and the capture of repeatable data sets proving this power generation technique through the telemetry provided by our custom onboard health-monitoring system.

We plan to promote this project across the Virginia Tech campus to incorporate multiple engineering majors and to fuel a much-needed passion for space exploration! The primary goal, besides building a functioning satellite payload proof-of-concept, is to present an atmosphere that fosters the real-world engineering project experience that sometimes is missing from our classroom environment.

We would be honored to have the support from our VT community and around the world in helping students face the challenges and solve the problems inherent to humanity's new space frontier! 

We are looking to fulfill our goal by the start of April.

We are currently seeking $10,000 which will be primarily used for costs associated with launch fees ($14,000) and to fill any parts needed or manufacturing gaps.

We have currently received $2,500 from the Virginia Space Grant Consortium and $5,000 from the VT Aerospace and Ocean Engineering department which went towards our first payment installment of $8,000 of the $14,000 launch cost. We have another installment of $6,000 due this coming April that will complete the payment to reserve our space on the NASA sounding rocket at Wallops Island. We are requesting funding to meet this need and to fill in the funding gap in order to afford parts, travel, and upcoming testing costs (vibe, and T-Vac).

We also desperately need to upgrade our lab with appropriate testing equipment in order to test our multiple subsystems
, travel costs associated with the multiple trips to and from the NASA launch site (Wallops, VA), and future manufacturing and building of an initial mockup of our flight hardware for full-scale integration testing.

Below are some pictures of our current testing success of a mock prototype of our deployment mechanism as well as the associated CAD model showing full deployment. The electrical schematic provides a detailed description of our health monitoring system and the subsequent PCB schematic details the layout which is still in progress. The initial testing of our self-manufactured solar cell array is also present (Represented from our Subsystem Testing Review, STR).

Thank you for your time and consideration!



Solar Array Deployer CAD

Solar Array Initial Test System


Functional Block Diagram

PCB Schematic (still in progress)

Portion of Self-Manufactured Solar Cell Array

Initial Testing of Self-Manufactured Solar Cell Array (open circuit voltage and short circuit current)

Organizer

Kristofer Stone
Organizer
Blacksburg, VA

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