Imperial’s Vehicle Design Society are currently in the process of designing and building a CubeSat—a small and relatively cheap satellite that will be Imperial’s first ever student satellite.
It’s not just going to be any old CubeSat either— it is going to be designed to aid search and rescue by locating distress signals, and will have the highest resolution (1.5m per pixel) of any CubeSat to date. There is currently a network of satellites to designed to locate and detect distress signals, but these were developed in the 70s and haven’t been updated since. The main aim of this project is to show that this system can be improved upon with minimal investment.
This project has brought together almost a hundred Imperial students from many departments, all with the hope of putting this satellite into space. First, the design will be made and finalised, and then a prototype will be constructed. This will be used to prove to space agencies this summer that this project should be taken seriously, and to attract the further funding needed to get the CubeSat off the ground and up into space where it belongs!
This is where the name comes in. This project needs to look professional and eye-catching to ensure it gets the funding it deserves. ‘CubeSat’ isn’t the coolest name, which is why we are launching a naming competition, where anyone will have the chance to name this satellite for themselves.
From the names suggested, a shortlist will be picked and then voted on. The winning name will become what the project is called, and hopefully in a couple of years will be orbiting the Earth!
If anyone wants to send in name suggestions, please email them to cubesat@vehicledesign.co.uk 🙂
From there, a shortlist will be selected that is then voted on. Pretty exciting!
Also I made (probably the worst ever) a little stop motion satellite too 😛
The real satellite will be much better and less made of string…
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