Gizmodo Science Fair: A $10,000 Student-Built Satellite Could Be the Future of Space Exploration

A squad of Brown University students is simply a victor of the 2024 Gizmodo Science Fair for demonstrating an innovative and cost-effective attack to outer design.

It usually takes 5 to six years to physique and motorboat a satellite, not to notation millions of dollars. Students astatine Rhode Island’s Brown University proved this doesn’t ever person to beryllium the case, completing a 445-day outer ngo successful August 2023. They successfully built, launched, and tested a functional outer utilizing off-the-shelf components and 3D-printed parts, each wrong a twelvemonth and connected a minimal budget, showing the imaginable for affordable abstraction entree and liable deorbiting technology.

The question

What’s the cheapest outer that tin beryllium built utilizing the easiest parts? And tin specified a satellite, equipped with a resistance sail for minimizing abstraction junk, beryllium built and launched successful conscionable 1 year?

The results

A tiny squad of Brown University students, comprising some graduates and undergraduates, achieved a important feat past twelvemonth by constructing an incredibly cost-effective 3U cubesat named SBUDNIC. The satellite, a cheeky motion to Sputnik and an acronym for the project’s participants, launched to abstraction aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket connected May 25, 2022, and a D-Orbit abstraction tug moved the instrumentality to its operational orbit.

© Vicky Leta/Gizmodo

The outer outgo conscionable $10,000 to physique and included off-the-shelf components, specified arsenic an Arduino Uno, 4 twelve Energizer AA batteries, immoderate Kapton tape, a ham radio, and a commercially disposable 3U framework (3U refers to a benignant of tiny outer that fits wrong a standardized 3-unit cubesat signifier factor). It besides included galore 3D-printed parts, which isn’t mean for satellites, and a chassis forged successful a instrumentality shop.

“If you privation to bash something, similar getting thing to space, you don’t privation to person to rebuild the wheel,” said Dheraj Ganjikunta, pb programme manager. “You don’t request to rebuild a machine oregon rebuild the battery, right?”

The SBUDNIC squad was divided into groups, each handling a circumstantial facet of the satellite: the structure, somesthesia control, tracking and communication, powerfulness supply, information management, payload, vigor system, and orbit control. SBUDNIC utilized an Arduino to tally its power bundle successful antithetic ways astatine the aforesaid time, making definite it operated properly.

SBUDNIC anterior to launch. Image: Brown University

The outer circled Earth for good implicit a year, moving astatine an altitude of 323 miles (520 kilometers), higher than the International Space Station. The squad didn’t person immoderate images oregon telemetry from the satellite, which was a large disappointment, but SBUDNIC exceeded expectations erstwhile it came to its altitude and orbit power system. For this, the squad created a resistance sail from regular Kapton tape, and it worked remarkably well, lowering the cubesat acold quicker than anticipated.

Why they did it

An aboriginal outer from the university, called EQUiSat, performed 14,000 orbits of Earth earlier reentering the ambiance 4 years ago; the quality betwixt the 2 is that SBUDNIC was made astir wholly from materials not meant for usage successful space. For this latest project, the squad aspired to execute 1 of the astir accelerated sketch-to-launch developments of a 3U cubesat.

Selia Jindal, 1 of the task leads, said galore of the challenges encountered during improvement were akin to those brought connected by the covid-19 pandemic. Numerous industries faced disrupted proviso chains and implicit upheaval, starring to a dense reliance connected online operations. At the aforesaid time, it’s wide that we are surviving successful the property of billionaire abstraction enthusiasts. Jindal and her colleagues wondered: “Is abstraction thing we tin access, and if truthful how, however tin we bash it successful the look of each of these shortages?” she said. “Can idiosyncratic entree abstraction arsenic a non-billionaire, oregon arsenic idiosyncratic without entree to a GDP similar NASA does with the United States? And tin tiny players truly get successful the game, and if they can, however tin they bash it?”

Accordingly, the squad strove to showcase a practical, cost-effective mode to scope space—and, not contented to halt there, they demonstrated a method of reducing abstraction debris.

Why they’re a winner

The SBUDNIC squad designed and built a outer wrong 1 twelvemonth and tested a resistance sail technology. They besides merit recognition for making the plan unfastened source: “So if anybody wants to spell retired and physique SBUDNIC 2.0 oregon immoderate they can—that’s the point,” said Marco Cross, the project’s main engineer. “We’ve breached the way done the snowfall truthful that idiosyncratic other tin locomotion a small spot easier down the enactment than we did, which was our extremity from the beginning.”

The resistance sail tech is simply a captious constituent of spacecraft astatine a clip erstwhile the planetary assemblage seeks to trim the magnitude of useless worldly successful orbit; much than 25,000 objects larger than 4 inches (10 cm) are present zooming astir supra Earth, according to NASA. It often takes decades for a dormant outer to autumn backmost into the atmosphere, but resistance sails person the imaginable to dramatically expedite this process, reducing the hazard of in-orbit collisions.

Without the payment of a resistance sail, it would person taken SBUDNIC astir 25 to 27 years to deorbit. But the $40 sail, made from Kapton polyimide film, brought that down dramatically. SBUDNIC spot the atmospheric particulate connected August 8, 2023, aft conscionable 445 days successful orbit. The squad thought it would instrumentality determination betwixt six to 7 years to drop.

They besides did the required investigating and followed each the rules. For example, the squad conducted vacuum and vibration tests and utilized reptile heating lamps successful a vacuum enclosure to trial the thermal shield they developed, which protected the satellite’s electronics from star radiation. The task “required immoderate radical to enactment a batch to conscionable the deadlines, due to the fact that standards don’t change,” Ganjikunta explained, making enactment of the documentation and investigating requirements. “All that worldly is the aforesaid for pupil satellites oregon ample outer operators with billion-dollar budgets,” helium added.

What’s next

Now, they mean to contiguous their findings astatine conferences, taxable information to publications, and signifier a bid of presentations successful schools passim Rhode Island.

“We’re presently gathering an open-source database for our task materials,” said Ganjikunta. “We’re inactive sanitizing and ensuring support for nationalist release. Once available, this volition let unfastened entree to our investigating information and outer code.”

Cross present assists with teaching the people wherever it each began, helping Brown University prof Rick Fleeter successful administering and teaching. Cross said he’s inspired by the information that, implicit the years, galore students from this people person pursued careers successful the abstraction industry.

The team

The SBUDNIC team, nether the enactment of Brown alumnus Marco Cross and module subordinate Rick Fleeter, consisted of astir 40 undergraduate and postgraduate students from Brown University’s School of Engineering, including pb programme manager Dheraj Ganjikunta and task pb Selia Jindal. The squad was academically diverse, with astir fractional the students from the School of Engineering and the remainder from a assortment of disciplines including economics, planetary relations, and sculpture. SBUDNIC was calved retired of Fleeter’s “Design of Space Systems” people (ENGN1760), and it received important enactment from cardinal sponsors and supporters specified arsenic the National Research Council of Italy, D-Orbit, AMSAT-Italy, La Sapienza-University of Rome, and NASA’s Rhode Island Space Grant.

Click present to spot each of the winners of the 2024 Gizmodo Science Fair.