....a $12,000 grant from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) . The grant was awarded under the CSA’s Grants and Contributions Program to support Research, Awareness and Learning in Space Science and Technology. The grant will be used for a Solar Panel Workshop which will be held at Neptec Design Group in Ottawa on February 21 and 22 (2012). The Workshop will be attended by students from 12 Canadian universities which are participating in the Canadian Satellite Design Challenge (CSDC), a national competition for university teams to design and build a small CubeSat satellite. The satellite will be approximately half the size of a shoe-box (10x10x30 cm) and will weigh no more than four kilograms (nine pounds).
At the Workshop, the students will learn about clean-room assembly processes and practices which are used to construct spacecraft components. Each team will assemble a solar panel for their CubeSat using some of the highest quality and capability spacecraft solar cells available. The students who attend the Workshop will pass on this knowledge to the rest of the students on their respective teams, which will benefit them as they continue to build their satellites. Once their spacecraft are assembled, the teams will subject them to structural and thermal tests at the CSA’s David Florida Laboratory (DFL) spacecraft test facility in Ottawa in September. DFL can simulate the harsh environments encountered during launch and while in orbit, to ensure that the spacecraft are fully capable of performing their missions. The winner will be announced at the end of September, 2012, and it is planned that the winning team will have its satellite launched into orbit.