UoS3 is a project of the University of Southampton to design, build and fly a CubeSat. Also known as the University of Southampton Small Satellite, UoS3 is a 10x10x10 cm spacecraft that will allow the University to expand its research while giving students practical experience in spacecraft design and development.
The University of Southampton has been involved in space debris research for over 20 years and UoS3 is planning to support that interest. The satellite will collect precise orbit and attitude data as its orbit decay under the influence of atmospheric drag, which will be used to validate re-entry prediction tools.
The project is under the Astronautics Research Group in the University and is overseen by Dr Adrian Tatnall with help from Aleksander Lidtke and Clemens Rumpf, both PhD students. In addition to this two Masters level Group Design Projects – one from the Faculty of Engineering and Environment (FEE) and one from the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) – comprising of a total of 15 students are working on the design of the spacecraft. The Southampton University Space Flight Society (SUSF) are also involved, designing, building and maintaining the University of Southampton Ground Station.
In 2012-13 the University ran Project Blast, a high-altitude balloon launch of a CubeSat that utilised Android phone technology. Building on this experience we are now in the process of designing and constructing test pieces to verify of design. This stage will last until spring 2015 after which we hope to be in a position to continue with fabrication of the flight hardware. This is being done, aiming for a launch in 2017/18.
To ensure our satellite complies with current space debris mitigation guidelines which limit a satellites duration in space to 25 years, the satellite must be launched into an orbit of altitude less than 600 km. To meet this condition we would like to launch UoS3 from the International Space Station by NanoRacks. We currently do not have funds for this launch. If you would like to support our project visit our Support Us section. Or, if you are an amateur radio operator and would like to be involved as a ground-station for UoS3 please visit our Get Involved section.
