SPACE HAUC

SPACE HAUC is a multidisciplinary astronautical engineering research and development project that aims to launch UMass Lowell’s first satellite: a CubeSat. A CubeSat is a miniaturized satellite used for conducting space research. A 1U CubeSat is a 10 cm cube weighing no more than 1.33 kg. The use of CubeSats as an educational tool at the University level has grown exponentially over the past few years due to their small size, low cost, and short development time. Many CubeSats settle for simple dipole antennas communicating in the S-band. While easy to implement, these simplistic satellite communications arrays limit the maximum data transfer to no more than 2 – 5 Mbps. For future CubeSat applications (formations of satellites, interplanetary missions), the communications system must be more advanced. SPACE HAUC will demonstrate the practicality of high data rate X-band communications using a phased array of patch antennas to achieve dynamic beam steering on a CubeSat platform. This allows for the satellite to maximize gain and by extension achieve a very high data rate. SPACE HAUC plans to launch a 3U CubeSat (10 cm x 10 cm x 30 cm, 4 kg).