Figure 1: Tethered CubeSat concept

Tethered-Sat 0

Tethered-Sat 0 is a rapidly prototyped testbed for new scientific experiments and advanced systems. For version 0 the team is creating a well documented foundation that can be used by future teams as a starting point to implement complex systems for testing before the system is used in a larger project. Tethered-Sat will use a tethered weather balloon along with a burn wire that connects to the CubeSat. Onboard, T-Sat, a spring loaded parachute deployment system will be activated once freefall is detected by the onboard accelerometer so recovery can be made.

The roles, responsibilities, and experience for each sub-team for Tethered-Sat is detailed below. Anyone is welcome and we are always looking for new members who are excited to work on the project.

Mechanical Team: CAD modeling, housing assembly, analysis modeling, material research, manufacturing, and parachute recovery systems

Electrical: Manufacturing, testing internal systems, power systems, microcontroller development, and soldering

Software: Recovery system, data acquisition & storage, and GPS tracking

Sub-Teams

Getting Involved

The best time to join the rest of team working on Tethered-Sat is now and requires zero previous experience. Getting started is really easy and simply requires your participation by coming to one of our weekly team meetings which are posted within the "General T-Sat" or "announcements" channel in the KSC Discord. Project updates can be found on our social media accounts along with additional information about the project.

Figure 2: Radio communication system for burn wire mechanism

Figure 3: First successful software freefall detected parachute deployment

Figure 4: Final T-Sat0 build