February Newsletter

And uni is back for 2025! A big welcome to all of our new students and members, and we hope everyone has had a great start to semester 1. PAST has loved meeting everyone this O-Week and we can’t wait to head into this next chapter of building the team, expanding our reach and our projects. Our team is already busy preparing and managing recruitment while getting back into the swing of uni and regular project sessions.

Avionics

Lots of testing and research into BMS has been done! Bucks and the soldered test board were trialled, with some issues to be looked into, and other components were put on procurement. Documentation for BMS is being written, with a 4 battery BMS shield put on redundancy for the HAB.

Solis is being procured and progressing well in terms of development, while pulsar is being fixed and improved. The FISH PCB was uploaded and more information was added into the FISH documentation. In terms of the battery heating project, a 3D model is being drafted, the prototype is working and a potential BMS microcontroller is under consideration. Battery temperature, thermal system and expansion into more sensors will be worked on as part of power telemetry.

Image of the STARCOMM PCB during manufacturing.

Software

Software has been collaborating with the avionics department on BMS, and has started on the code for the project. A form for gathering data on subsystem software requirements has been finalised and sent out. A basic LED blink project was created to help learn how to configure a STM32Cube project to use freeRTOS.

ADCS

Blackbox PCB is complete and final touches have been made on the Sun Sensor test board. HAB software for magnetorquers was written and will be tested, and another magnetorquer PCB has been soldered. The driver now switches between three magnetorquers! The testboard ESP32 is working well, but debugging is still needed for another magnetorquer PCB's buck converter. Characterisation of the magnetorquers with three different core materials is in progress.

ADCS has additionally been diligently researching attitude sensors and reviewing Altium tutorials to help with selection of sensors and the design of future components. Members have looked into mounting solutions for the HAB and attitude determination algorithms.

Marketing and Team Engagement

A lot of effort has gone into promoting the team in time for O-Week, with our socials being updated and many emails being sent out to ensure all our operations ran smoothly! This month's progress is the result of lots of brainstorming and organizing recruitment ideas, and it's been fantastic seeing new students engage so actively. Branding guidelines were updated and the website is continually being worked on.

Events

This O-Week was the first time PAST has had a stall at both O-Day and the SAE Expo, and it was a massive success! We received a record number of expressions of interest, surpassing the size of our current team! Our members loved getting to show everyone their projects and the improved recruitment process, and simply being able to present PAST to the wider Curtin community. Huge thank you to all of the students who came by to visit us or registered their interest in joining (or both!). We have reached out to all our potential new members about an information night and the next stages, so make sure to keep an eye out.

Photo of the team at the PAST stall during the SAE First Year Expo.

We held our monthly meeting on the 21st of February, where we ran over event preparation, a few new constitution change proposals and our new HAB timeline, which has an updated launch window in July.

Looking Ahead

Our PAST Information Nights are happening in March, which will give our potential recruits a chance to learn more about the team and our structure. We’ve even made a second night due to incredible numbers of interest from students ! These information nights are invitation-only, so be sure to reply to our emails if you can’t attend or need to attend online