Launch of Team Seychelles’ CubeSat Prototype |11 October 2021

One of the challenges for this year's First Global Challenge edition was to build a Nano satellite prototype to solve a relevant local problem. It is similar to a CubeSat, which is a class of Nano satellite with a standard size of 1000cm^3. However, unlike the latter, it is not launched into space, but into the lower layers of Earth's atmosphere using weather balloons or hobbyist rockets. CubeSats and CubeSat prototypes can be used for many different reasons, the former most often being used by amateurs and for conducting experiments which do not need large satellites.

The problem that we identified in Seychelles is related to weather predictions. Accurate weather forecasts are very important for Seychelles because a lot of activities depend on the weather. These include tourism, domestic and international flights, maritime related activities, agriculture and others. It is important for fishermen going far out to know what the weather will be like. With this project, our mission was to make a first step towards data capture, which could then be useful for not only weather predictions but environment monitoring such as the air quality. This is also Seychelles' first step in endeavouring into space technology.

The CubeSat prototype's payload was a microcontroller, the Arduino MKR 1000; a camera; many sensors which measure the atmospheric conditions; and an SD card to which data collected by the sensors is written.

This challenge was very demanding and tedious. The initial plan was to use to launch the CubeSat prototype using a helium balloon. However, after we ran some simulations and found that the landing location would be from 50km to 100km away from Mahé, we had two big problems on our hands. The first problem was the task of constructing an enclosure which would allow all the sensors to be exposed to the atmosphere and would at the same time protect the microcontroller and SD card from seawater and impact damage. The other problem was finding a means of tracking our project. Unfortunately, we could not find a GPS locally and importing one would have taken too much time. Because of this, we were not able to launch the CubeSat prototype using the balloon.

The Seychelles Air Force has offered to take our project to a high altitude on one of their airplanes. Without its help we would have probably not been able to launch our project at all or would have had to launch it at a very low altitude. Captain Donn Du Preez and Commander Rakshit Kapur were the pilots that flew the airplane with our prototype. Captain Donn Du Preez was our main point of contact with SAF. Team Seychelles would like to thank Colonel Michael Rosette, Chief of Defence Forces/Seychelles People's Defence Forces, Major Rodney Zarine, Commanding Officer (SAF), Captain Donn Du Preez and his crew for all the help. The launch was successful. To the contribution of all our stakeholders, Team Seychelles 2021 CubeSat prototype reached an altitude of around 14,000ft and we collected lots of data. All the data were uploaded and then downloaded to the First Global Challenge Committee as proof of the successful undertaking to this challenge. The total to be scored for this challenge is 10 points.

The 2021 First Global Challenge will be announcing the Awards and Ranking on October 30, 2021.

Team Seychelles have the confidence and hope that they will have a better ranking and award this year in comparison to last year. We wish them all the best.

The accompanying photos show Team Seychelles prior to launching their CubeSat Prototype as well as some images captured from the air.

Contributed