Telecommunications system of a CubeSat satellite

This Final degree's thesis is done under the UPC-Canadà program in which the author realizes his last degree year in Montréal, Canada, to the Polytechnique de Montréal university under the supervision of Dr. Giovanni Beltrame being part of his laboratory Mistlab and also on the Polyorbite group of students. Polyorbite is an organization that participates in the biannual contest CSDC (Canadian Satellite Design Challenge) that consists on the realization from 0 of a 3U CubeSat by undergraduate and master students. By the start of this thesis on September 2016, the contest was in the middle of the 2014-2016 iteration without having almost nothing on the telecommunication part, having just 2 semesters for design, build and test an entirely telecommunications system, suitable for the satellite purpose, until June 2016 in which the final presentations of the contest took place on Ottawa. The purpose of this thesis is then an early design of a telecommunications system for a CubeSat satellite

Cubesat science mission proposal and communications subsystem demonstrator

This Master Thesis (MT) is developed under the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) 2017 Trainee Project program. Among 26 projects offered in 2017, the author of this MT was selected for the project nº 20 named: “CubeSat: Science Mission Proposal and Communications subsystem demonstrator”.This Master Thesis is performed under the 2017 ESAC Trainee Project program which covers the development of a low-budget VHF-UHF automated ground station intended for CubeSat satellite operation. While this type of ground station is widely in the radio amateur world for its easy implementation, this ground station introduces the recently growing "software-defined radio" (SDR) technology used as its main transceiver, the most important part of any ground station. Being a very different approach comparing to conventional analog radio transceivers, the implementation of SDR for high power applications implies several difficulties that this project mostly overcomes by the analysis of available RF components in the market, the purchasing of suitable devices, assembling and finally testing for compliance with the requirements stated in the first section of this thesis. In parallel as a secondary objective, a CubeSat telecommunications system demonstrator is developed with the aim of emulating a CubeSat satellite to use for testing purposes along with the ground station to understand the different modulation schemes used in the space sector and the capabilities that SDR technology introduces. This thesis combines the fields of aerospace and telecommunications on a fully basis providing a functional ground station in both VHF and UHF frequency bands, including reception and transmission of narrow and wideband signals, fully documented, characterized, calibrated and integrated into a visually attractive rack enclosure, including the study and recommendations for suitable future improvements and upgrades to the ground station, such as the addition of L-band and S-band capabilities

Cubesat science mission proposal and communications subsystem demonstrator

This Master Thesis (MT) is developed under the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) 2017 Trainee Project program. Among 26 projects offered in 2017, the author of this MT was selected for the project nº 20 named: “CubeSat: Science Mission Proposal and Communications subsystem demonstrator”.This Master Thesis is performed under the 2017 ESAC Trainee Project program which covers the development of a low-budget VHF-UHF automated ground station intended for CubeSat satellite operation. While this type of ground station is widely in the radio amateur world for its easy implementation, this ground station introduces the recently growing "software-defined radio" (SDR) technology used as its main transceiver, the most important part of any ground station. Being a very different approach comparing to conventional analog radio transceivers, the implementation of SDR for high power applications implies several difficulties that this project mostly overcomes by the analysis of available RF components in the market, the purchasing of suitable devices, assembling and finally testing for compliance with the requirements stated in the first section of this thesis. In parallel as a secondary objective, a CubeSat telecommunications system demonstrator is developed with the aim of emulating a CubeSat satellite to use for testing purposes along with the ground station to understand the different modulation schemes used in the space sector and the capabilities that SDR technology introduces. This thesis combines the fields of aerospace and telecommunications on a fully basis providing a functional ground station in both VHF and UHF frequency bands, including reception and transmission of narrow and wideband signals, fully documented, characterized, calibrated and integrated into a visually attractive rack enclosure, including the study and recommendations for suitable future improvements and upgrades to the ground station, such as the addition of L-band and S-band capabilities