| Bluesat UNSW | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Mission statement | To give students real-world experience in multi-disciplinary space engineering projects, and promote space technology in Australia. [1] |
| Type of project | Space |
| Location | Sydney |
| Owner | UNSW |
| Country | Australia |
| Established | 1997 [1] |
| Funding | UNSW and corporate sponsors |
| Status | Active |
| Website | bluesat |
The Bluesat project is the University of New South Wales's student space engineering projects group. Bluesat aims to promote the advancement of the Australian Space Sector and give students the opportunity to undertake space engineering projects.
Current projects include a high altitude balloon platform for near-space research and testing, a rover design for international competitions and the further development of our satellite tracking groundstation.
Bluesat's high altitude balloon platform is designed as a modular testbed for space hardware and high altitude research. The platform will contain all telemetry instrumentation for flight tracking including an ADSB transceiver as well as hardware for monitoring internal and external temperature, altitude and atmospheric pressure. Following preliminary testing, the platform will support the near-space testing of space hardware and allow for advanced data collection on the atmospheric conditions of the Earth.
Bluesat's Off-World robotics team is involved in the design and manufacture of rovers for traversing and completing a variety of tasks on a simulated lunar surface. Using knowledge previously gained from competitions from 2015-2018, the team now looks to participate in the Australian and European Rover Challenges once again.
One of Bluesat's oldest projects, the satellite tracking groundstation allows Bluesat to manage data transfer up and down from satellites. Currently, the team is focused on developing a smaller, portable groundstation that may also be used to communicate with the High Altitude Balloon and Off-World Robotics rover.
Bluesat's ground station team assisted in the tracking of and communications with the ECO360 satellite for ACSER.
Bluesat's Off-World Robotics team has been involved in several rover platform designs for various competitions. Bluesat's rover BLUEtounge participated in the European Rover Challenge from 2015 to 2018. The team came 16th out of 40 in 2015, 9th in 2016 and 8th in 2018.
In 2019 Bluesat collaborated with Biosphere UNSW and AIAA Rocketry UNSW to launch a 2U CubeSat on a rocket for the THUNDA 2019 rocket launch competition. The ADCS team also designed a detumble system for the rocket however it was not tested in that project. Their design is kept for future projects.
Other previous projects include an attitude control system for the Waratah Seed [2] project and a CubeSat design for the Japanese Satellite Design Competition (Satcon). [3]
Most Recently, Bluesat's satellite team developed a 4U CubeSat payload as a collaboration with the UNSW Rocketry Team for their entry to the Spaceport America Cup in 2023. The payload served as a proof of concept for UV resin 3D printing in microgravity and was flown to 30,000ft in the competition.
| Year | Competition | Ranking |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | European Rover Challenge | 16th |
| 2016 | European Rover Challenge | 9th |
| 2018 | European Rover Challenge | 8th |
A CubeSat is a class of small satellite with a form factor of 10 cm (3.9 in) cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than 2 kg (4.4 lb) per unit, and often use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components for their electronics and structure. CubeSats are deployed into orbit from the International Space Station, or launched as secondary payloads on a launch vehicle. As of December 2023, more than 2,300 CubeSats have been launched.
High-altitude balloons or stratostats are usually uncrewed balloons typically filled with helium or hydrogen and released into the stratosphere, generally attaining between 18 and 37 km above sea level. In 2013, a balloon named BS 13-08 reached a record altitude of 53.7 km.
The ballute is a parachute-like braking device optimized for use at high altitudes and supersonic velocities.
Interorbital Systems (IOS) is an American company based in Mojave, California that specializes in the manufacturing of rockets and satellites. It was established in 1996 by Roderick and Randa Milliron. As of October 2023, the company is in development stage for three orbital launch vehicles: NEPTUNE, TRITON, and TRITON HEAVY.
JP Aerospace is an American company that aims to achieve affordable access to space. Their main activities include high-atmospheric lighter-than-air flights carrying cameras or miniature experiments called PongSats and minicubes. They are also engaged in an Airship to Orbit project.
Micro-Space was an aerospace corporation based in Denver, Colorado, founded in February 1977 by Richard P. Speck under the name Spectron Instrument Corporation. The corporation changed its name to "Micro-Space, Inc." in 1998. It was dissolved in 2011, following the death of the founder.
CU Spaceflight is a student-run society at Cambridge University. It is founded with the aim of achieving access to space, with minimal financial expenses. The society is supported by the Cambridge-MIT Institute.
The NASA Launch Services Program (LSP) is responsible for procurement of launch services for NASA uncrewed missions and oversight of launch integration and launch preparation activity, providing added quality and mission assurance to meet program objectives. LSP operates under the NASA Space Operations Mission Directorate (SOMD).
A CanSat is a type of sounding rocket payload used to teach space technology. It is similar to the technology used in miniaturized satellites. No CanSat has ever left the atmosphere, nor orbited the Earth.
Colorado Student Space Weather Experiment (CSSWE) was the sixth National Science Foundation sponsored CubeSat mission. It was built by students at the University of Colorado at Boulder with advising from professionals at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. The CSSWE mission was a joint effort by the University of Colorado's Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences and Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. The mission principal investigator was Prof. Xinlin Li, and the Co-PIs are Prof. Scott Palo and Dr. Shri Kanekal. The project manager for the project was Dr. Lauren Blum, the system engineer was Dr. David Gerhardt, and the instrument scientist was Dr. Quintin Schiller.
PW-Sat is a series of Polish CubeSats designed and built by students at the Warsaw University of Technology in conjunction with the Faculty of Power and Aeronautical Engineering of Warsaw University of Technology, the Space Research Centre of Polish Academy of Sciences, and the European Space Agency. As of January 1, 2024, there have been 2 PW-Sats with a third in development. The first PW-Sat was the first Polish artificial satellite which was launched 13 February 2012 from ELA-1 at Guiana Space Centre aboard Italian-built Vega launch vehicle during its maiden voyage. After their graduation, the team that developed the original PW-Sat have also worked to develop the subsequent missions, establishing a private company named PW-Sat to design and manufacturer the PW-Sats, all of which test novel deorbiting methods, with the overall goal of the program to develop solutions to space debris.
Nanoracks LLC is a private in-space services company which builds space hardware and in-space repurposing tools. The company also facilitates experiments and launches of CubeSats to Low Earth Orbit.
NUTS-1 was a Norwegian 2U CubeSat created by the NUTS student satellite project at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). The satellite was developed by students from several engineering and science disciplines. It was one of three CubeSats part of the Norwegian student space program ANSAT, the other two are the CubeStar and the HiNCube. From NTNUs CubeSat projects NUTS-1 is a successor of the nCube-1 and nCube-2 projects. The mission was stopped, and the small satellite activities are continued by the Orbit NTNU student organization and the HYPSO mission from NTNU Small Satellite Lab.
The Nanoracks CubeSat Deployer (NRCSD) is a device to deploy CubeSats into orbit from the International Space Station (ISS).
Spire Global, Inc. is a space-to-cloud data and analytics company that specializes in the tracking of global data sets powered by a large constellation of nanosatellites, such as the tracking of maritime, aviation and weather patterns.
Zero 2 Infinity is a private Spanish company developing high-altitude balloons intended to provide access to near space and low Earth orbit using a balloon-borne pod and a balloon-borne launcher.
ESTCube-2 was a three-unit CubeSat built by the Estonian Student Satellite Foundation. ESTCube-2 launched from Kourou, French Guiana, with the European Space Agency's Vega launch vehicle on 9 October 2023 at 4:36 a.m. EEST. The satellite failed to deploy and was destroyed on reentry.
RemoveDEBRIS was a satellite research project intending to demonstrate various space debris removal technologies. The mission was led by the Surrey Space Centre from the University of Surrey with the satellite's platform manufactured by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL). Partners on the project included Airbus, ArianeGroup, Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology, Inria, Innovative Solutions In Space, Surrey Space Centre, and Stellenbosch University.
Space Concordia, commonly referred to as SC, is a student organisation at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, dedicated to the development of space technology.
SpaceX CRS-27, also known as SpX-27, was a Commercial Resupply Service mission to the International Space Station (ISS) launched on 15 March 2023. The mission was contracted by NASA and was flown by SpaceX using Cargo Dragon C209. This was the seventh flight for SpaceX under NASA's CRS Phase 2.
| Faculties and schools |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Campuses |
| |
| Residential colleges | ||
| Student organisations | ||
| People |
| |
 | This spacecraft or satellite related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |