CAPE II: Design, development, launch, and on-orbit operation of an experimental picosatellite

The CAPE II satellite was a multi-disciplinary project that was developed over approximately 6 years. The project incorporated aspects from electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, computer science, and physics. This project has been utilized as a learning opportunity for undergraduate students with regards to designing, developing, and maintaining a low earth orbiting satellite. The development of the satellite was completed in August, 2013 when it was loaded into a poly picosatellite orbital deployer or P-POD, the deployment system for the satellite. CAPE II was one of eleven satellites chosen to fly on the Education Launch of Nanosatellite (ELaNa) IV mission. Once all of the satellites chosen for the mission were integrated into the P-POD, it was delivered to NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops, Virginia. On November 19th, 2013 an Air Force Minotaur-1 rocket carrying all of the satellites for the ELaNa IV mission was launched successfully. The CAPE team is currently monitoring the satellite´s status as it orbits around the earth. The project was broken into several subsystems including mechanical, communications, power, control and data handling (CDH), and ground station. Majority of the team was electrical engineering students, with a few mechanical engineering and computer science students. Since the launch of the satellite, the team has begun preliminary designs of the next satellite project, CAPE III. The new satellite will try to correct all of the issues from CAPE II as well as incorporate more advanced technologies in all subsystems. The team is also currently developing a weather buoy that will communicate with the CAPE II satellite which will then relay that information to the ground station.