Our Electrical & Electronic Department’s Electronic Systems Laboratory (ESL) made international news on two fronts in the past few months.
Our ESL student team won first prize in the student division of the Mission Idea Contest, held at the US/Japan Nanosatellite Symposium in Japan late last year. Their award was for their article entitled “The Outernet: A novel satellite communication relay constellation”. They competed against 71 other teams, from top universities across the world. Not only did they receive a certificate and 50 000 Yen in prize money, but they also gave the world a taste of what we are capable of at Stellenbosch University.
Other exciting news for our department is that the ESL’s suggestion for a 2U-Cubesat, which will be known as ZA-AeroSat, has been accepted by the Von Karman Institute in Brussels. This will make our Cubesat one of 50 to be launched in 2015, as part of the QB50 constellation aimed at gathering data about the higher levels of the ionosphere. The Cubesat will operate at a height of 200km to 350km above the surface of the earth. Funding for this project has been approved by the Department of Science and Technology, and the project will be undertaken in collaboration with the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT).
Read more about our winning Mission Idea Contest student division entry here: www.spacemic.net/mic2finalists_1-6.html
Read more about our Cubesat research here: www.innovus.co.za/pages/posts/professor-herman-steyn-control-systems-for-small-satellites-299.php
