March Newsletter

Overview 

New recruits. New projects. New Steering team making moves. From our humble beginnings in 2024, PAST is certainly growing fast. March was a packed month - full of events, planning sessions, project development, and testing. We joined SSTC’s High Altitude Balloon (HAB) launch, took part in MechElMech, fabricated a new batch of PCBs… and that’s just the start. With PAST's new recruitment process also starting up, and a fresh wave of recruits beginning Onboarding, March marked a major step forward for the team. This newsletter is a packed one! 

Recruitment 

2025 marked the start of a new recruitment process for PAST. Thanks to the hard work of Marketing and HR members, we received an overwhelming number of applications. What was originally planned to be a single info session, turned into two fully booked nights where over 100 students learnt about the team, and engaged in a space-themed team exercise. These became known as our PAST Info Nights (PINs), and they were a great success. It was awesome to see so many passionate students eager to learn more about CubeSat development and how the team operates.  

After the Info Nights, students who expressed interest underwent an Onboarding Application. PAST now has over 60 recruits! Over the next two months, recruits will be upskilling themselves through working on Onboarding projects. We had our first Onboarding session on the 26th of March, and it is super exciting to see so many recruits keen to start work and contribute to PAST's mission. 

Steering Team's 2025 Goals 

PAST’s new leadership team has been pushing towards more system integration and clearer mission objectives. Ever since our first week back, we began high level planning on the CubeSat's architecture and mission. PAST has decided that CubeSat 1's objective is an imaging mission. Throughout this month, we have been discussing power budgets and major design decisions such as solar panel configuration, power distribution, and on-board computer architecture. We are motivated to get projects integrated together and aim to have a CubeSat prototype by the end of this year.  

An important milestone for PAST is our High Altitude Balloon (HAB) launch planned for this upcoming July. The HAB will bring together PAST projects such as a custom radio communication system (STARCOMM), GNSS modules, and Magnetorquers on a custom chassis to test in high altitude conditions. We will also have various onboard sensors for telemetry and cameras to capture images of the land below. A Master Design Plan for the HAB is being organised by Madster (Mission Manager) to document the design process. We are currently in the Manufacturing phase of HAB development. 

Events 

Pyromantis High Altitude Balloon 

Some members of our Steering Team had the opportunity to attend the Space Science and Technology Centre's (SSTC) High Altitude Balloon Launch (HAB), known as Pyromantis. The Pyromantis payload housed five spectral cameras to obtain data on the forest's fuel load moisture content, which will aid bushfire prediction and management. 

After a 4am early wake up, five members of PAST's steering team headed down to Waroona Oval. There, they helped with student outreach, assisted the balloon launch process and even had the critical task of holding and releasing the balloon’s tether. Once the balloon was in the air, the team joined the chase in a fleet of cars. Fortunately, it landed just a short distance from the main road, making recovery a smooth success. 

We are extremely grateful to have invited by SSTC. This experience taught us valuable lessons about a HAB's integration, launch and chase process, which will serve incredibly useful for PAST's upcoming HAB launch! 

MechElMech 

Amidst all the action in March, PAST also took part in MechElMech, Curtin's largest engineering networking night. With over 300 students in attendance, it was an amazing opportunity for outreach, connecting with industry professionals, and engaging with fellow students. 

Technical Project Updates 

Many PAST projects have made incredible progress in the past month. Here are a few highlights because there are too many to possibly list them all! 

HAB Integration board/Flight Computer (FISH) 

With our High-Altitude Balloon creeping closer in July, we have been working hard to keep to deadlines. Garv (Avionics and Software member) has diligently been working on the Functional Integration Shield for HAB (FISH). This is a printed circuit board (PCB) that attaches to our flight computer, serving to interface different subsystems, distribute power, and handle commands and data between subsystems. FISH has been fabricated and now is in its testing and software development stage. 

BlackBox 

Inspired by flight recorders used in aircrafts, Daniel (ADCS member) and Raph (Avionics Lead) has been working on a Flight Recorder for Instrumentation and Event Data (FRIED). FRIED is a HAB project intended to back-up the main flight telemetry, in addition to saving images from an in-built ESP32 Camera. It has an independent power source and ESP32 microcontroller which stores data piped from FISH. The structure is designed with a crumple zone to withstand the HAB's impact upon fall.  

Electrical Power System Development 

As part of our push toward full electrical integration, development has begun on an integrated Electrical Power System (EPS). This will involve the integration of five major power systems - Solar Panels, Battery Management and Protection, Battery heating, Power regulation and Power distribution. The final goal is to condense these projects into two PCBs that house four Li-Ion Batteries and features an independent STM32 Microcontroller.  We also had the incredible opportunity to meet with Jacob from the BINAR Space Program, where we discussed our EPS design, asked a ton of questions, and gained valuable insights to guide our development moving forward. 

One part of EPS is battery heating. In low earth orbit, a CubeSat can extreme temperatures (up to +/- 150 degrees Celsius!). This is more than enough to freeze our Li-Ion batteries and cut power to all subsystems. Silas (Avionics Member) has been testing battery temperature management using a PID algorithm and designed a PCB to test his heating system, which will be fabricated very soon. 

STARCOMM - Radio Communication 

Rayaan (Avionics Member) recently wrapped up his BINAR Summer Internship, where he developed a custom Yagi antenna for BINAR’s high school outreach program. Designed to be simple enough for high school students to build, the antenna is cleverly constructed from tape measures, PVC pipe, and 3D-printed parts. His antenna (made of tape measures, PVC pipe and 3D printed parts) successfully receives radio waves and even pulled data from a satellite! This antenna will now serve as a ground station antenna for PAST’s upcoming high-altitude balloon mission. Looking ahead, there are also plans to develop a deployable onboard antenna for the CubeSat. 

On the transceiver side of STARCOMM, the transceiver board (PULSAR) showed its first signs of life. After days of debugging, the team successfully got PULSAR transmit pulses, marking a huge milestone and morale boost for the STARCOMM team. In the future, the STARCOMM team intends to move beyond PULSAR's OpenLST design, transitioning to a custom board based on an STM32 microcontroller, which is currently being researched by Sean (System Engineering Lead and Avionics member).  

Sun Sensor testing (OSIRIS) - ADCS 

Sun sensors are used to obtain the sun vector in an object's reference frame, which can be used to determine the orientation of an object (in our case a CubeSat!). Felix (Marketing Lead and ADCS member) developed a PCB to test different photodiodes. One has now been selected, and a sun sensor module is in the works. ADCS plans to derive the sun vector from the sun sensor data in their next testing phase. 

Team Resource Updates 

Team Resources has been hard at work with Recruitment, Onboarding and other exciting projects. Mary (Marketing Recruit) has created a Cubey Mascot for the team, the website has had a makeover, and awesome social posts and reels have been released. After months and months of waiting, a diffuser finally arrived for PAST's studio light. Felix (Marketing Lead) has been taking some wonderful headshots of team members which can be seen on the Team page of the website.

Looking Back and Ahead 

Looking back over the past few months, it’s clear the journey hasn’t been all smooth sailing. Some projects faced delays, and we found ourselves scrambling to handle a massive (and unexpected) influx of applicants. However, every challenge has been a learning opportunity. These hurdles brought us closer as a team, helping us grow, adapt, and improve, and that’s the beauty of PAST! 

Looking forward, our sights are set on a major milestone: the High-Altitude Balloon launch in July. With a fresh wave of recruits joining us, we’re incredibly excited to see what new talent and energy they’ll bring. Overall, we’re hyped for what’s ahead. PAST’s has a big FUTURE, and we’re just getting started.