CP 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

CP 1 [CalPoly]

The Cal Poly Picosatellite Project (PolySat) was founded in 1999 and involves a multidisciplinary team of undergraduate and graduate engineering students working to design, construct, test, launch, and operate a CubeSat.

CP1, the first satellite developed at Cal Poly, is designed with the objective of providing a reliable bus system to allow for flight qualification of a wide variety of small sensors and attitude control devices. For the first launch, CP1 carries a sun sensor developed by Optical Energy Technologies and an experimental magnetorquer developed at Cal Poly by undergraduate students. The test build of CP1 has undergone vibration and thermal-vacuum qualification testing at NASA worst-case qualification levels. Final assembly of the CP1 flight build is complete, and the unit will soon undergo qualification testing. A launch for CP1 is currently being arranged.

Building on the lessons learned from CP1, the recently established CP2 Team is currently in the design phase. Like CP1, the mission of CP2 is to provide a highly capable bus system that can support numerous small payloads. The ambitious mission concept includes duplex 1200 bps digital communications, three-axis attitude determination and control, and substantial data processing and storage capability while still providing at least 33% of the spacecraft mass, volume, and power for payloads.

The launch of CP1 and CP2 was not successful, as the Dnepr-1 failed 86 sec after launch.

CP6 is a 1 kg cubesat project to test attitude determination and control via magnetometers and magnetorquers. The secondary mission is earth observation via two on-board cameras. Will also carry an experimental deorbit tether. A UHF transceiver will be carried with CW and 1200bd FSK AX25 transmit capabilities.