Swisscube Blog

On February 11th and 12th, students of the SwissCube team went to ESA ESTEC to perform radiation tests. The tests were done using the gamma rays facility which simulates the cumulated proton and electron dose that will be absorbed by the electronic during the mission.

From left to right: Nicolas, Fabienne, Bob, David, Noémie…

Bob Nickson describing the facility, and the test set-up…

The Total Irradiation Dose including a factor of 4 margin that the SwissCube shall survive is 20 krad[Si] behind 1mm of Al.

We tested our sun sensor, our RF power amplifier and board, our microcontroller (MSP430f1611) and our payload CMOS detector all the way up to 46 krads. Problems only started to show up after about 30 krads. We are still analysing the results, but the cumulated dose might not be a problem for the SwissCube mission !

Over the last 4 Saturdays, a few students, SET members, and radio-amateurs of Vaud (RAV) started assembling the new antennas and tearing down the old ground station antennas. It took 6 hours at 6 to actually assemble 3 antennas… All 6 antennas (4 for the UHF downlink at 437 MHz and 2 for the VHF uplink at 148 MHz) are now ready to be mounted on the new mast. A few courageous Saturday early birds went to pick up the new mast in France mid-November, it was provided for free by a French Radio-Amateur, Hervé Boex.

Thanks to the two Omar, Anthony, Hervé, Laurent, Gari, Martin, Roman, Guillaume, Martial, Ted…

It is not over, but it is a good start!

The problem: how are we going to get it out? The solution: the window!

On a rainy Saturday afternoon…

How precise again?

Precise to ½ a mm…

That’s it!

BEFORE: The old set-up on the roof of ELB… Note the good weather…

AFTER: Erased from the surface!! Now it’s time to set up the new one!! (Note the crappy weather to do this with!)