The Canadian CubeSat Project
The Canadian CubeSat Project (CCP) was an opportunity provided by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to engage professors and students of post-secondary institutions in a space mission. Their objectives were to increase interests of space related STEM fields and give students the opportunity for hand-on experiences. The goal of CCP is to help prepare student to enter the workforce while advancing space science and technology. In addition to the development of science related skills, a focus is also on developing communication skills to allow the students to effectively work with industry and the public.
After the announcement of the project in 2017, teams were encouraged to plan and submit applications. In May of 2018 15 teams were chosen and from there the universities started to plan and develop their program to start design phase in January of 2019. By August 2020 the construction phase started, testing was underway by September 2021 until the teams launch date between 2022 and 2023.
RADSAT-SK: Saskatchewan's First Cube Satellite
The RADSAT-SK CubeSat houses an experimental dosimeter board developed by USask’s Electrical and Computer Engineering professor, Dr. Li Chen, along with his team, and a fungal melanin coating that is purified from G.simplex for radiation shielding, as part of Dr. Ekaterina Dadachova’s team’s research. The dosimeter board includes a number of low-cost experimental MOSFETs, which demonstrate a linear relationship between output and total absorbed dose during ground testing, and a commercial RADFET used for calibration and comparison purposes. Some of the MOSFETs are covered with a melanin-containing coating, with increasing melanin content across samples, in order to test the feasibility of melanin as a cosmic radiation shielding method in space.
In Collaboration with Saskatchewan Polytechnic
More information regarding their contributions to the development of RADSAT-SK to follow at a later date.
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