About Us » Organization » The Engineering Division

The Engineering Division and the C.T.O.
The “other half” of U.L.S.S.D. is the Engineering Division, which is composed of six Engineering Teams — Mechanical, Electrical, Flight Computer, Payloads, Integration and Testing & Evaluation. Each team is assigned a leader based on work currently underway. All team leaders report progress and communicate with the C.T.O., who is elected during an AGM. The C.T.O. is essentially the chief engineer of the BLUEsat Project, and oversees the work being undertaken in the Engineering Teams. It is the C.T.O.’s duty to ensure that engineering progress is tracking well against the Project’s milestones and to ensure that a completed satellite will exist in time for launch integration. These milestones and deadlines are established by the President and the Steering Committee, and outlined in the Project Plan.

The undertaking of this position requires that the C.T.O. manage engineers working in Engineering Teams under him or her. Each team has a leader, who communicates with the C.T.O. on a day-to-day basis, keeping him or her abreast of the latest developments. The C.T.O. manages the development of the satellite as a whole, whereas the team leaders are responsible for delivering progress in their particular sub-systems.

In satellite engineering, it is necessary that all engineering teams co-operate with each other, since the end product is a tightly integrated system of specialised sub-systems. Hence, there must be unrestricted communication between engineers at the lowest level working on related specific details. Broader systems integration matters are deliberated over in meetings of the leaders of the Engineering Teams and the C.T.O. However it is C.T.O.’s decision that is final, for it is his ultimate responsibility to deliver the satellite. The work of the six Engineering Teams is briefly outlined below:

1. Mechanical
   The Mechanical team is responsible for the design and manufacture of the satellite’s structure. They must communicate with engineers from other teams regarding various requirements. The Mechanical Team Leader must advise the C.T.O. on the status and progress of his or her team, and must endeavor to deliver those things required by the C.T.O. in due time. In months to come, the Team will have to co-operate with the Integrating & Testing team, making modifications as directed by the C.T.O. and other team leaders to produce an assembled satellite. Structural or thermodynamic problems may have to be addressed following testing.

2. Electrical
   It is the Electrical team’s job to design, construct, test, and deliver fully-working sub-units of the satellite’s electrical hardware, such as the solar cells and power systems, the radio transmitters and receivers, the modems and the telemetry network. The Electrical team is directed by its team leader, who in turn receives requirements from the C.T.O. and reports to him or her the team’s progress.

3. Flight Computer
   The Flight Computer (FC) team is responsible for the design, manufacture, testing and deliverance of a fully-functional Flight Computer, capable of interfacing properly with units of the Electrical Team, and fulfilling all its requirements. Engineers of the FC team must co-operate closely with members of all the other teams to ensure that the systems will integrate correctly. This is NOT solely the FC team’s task, and other teams must provide significant work to allow easy integration with the Flight Computer. The FC team is headed by its team leader, who is regularly directed to achieving various goals by the C.T.O., and reports on the team’s progress to him or her regularly.

4. Payloads
   The Payload team is headed by the Payload team leader, who is responsible for seeing that the various payloads undertaken undergo steady progress in order to deliver complete and functional payload systems to be integrated with the Flight Computer. Interfacing requires individual payload specialists to consult with FC team members on a continuous basis. Furthermore, software required to operate the payloads must be provided in a state such that it is easy to integrate into the FC’s system software. The Payload Team leader reports back to the C.T.O., and is guided by him or her.

5. Integration
   It is the Integration Team’s job to facilitate the efficient and correct inter-connection of various electrical systems, and fully testing the setup in order to ensure that all systems perform as required. Following that, each sub-system must be installed in it’s physical location within the structure, and wired up once again. At this point some physical adjustments may have to be made to the structure to accommodate the systems. The sub-systems, now mounted in the satellite, must again be tested to ensure that wiring is correct and proper operation is achieved. At this point, the Testing & Evaluation team takes control of the assembled satellite. The Integration team is led by the Integration team leader, who will ensure that the required schedules are established and adhered to. The team leader closely works with the C.T.O. during the integration phase to deliver a fully-functional satellite.

6. Testing & Evaluation
   The goal of the Testing & Evaluation (T&E) team is to ensure that the satellite is capable of withstanding the rough ride into space and functioning properly once it is there, for the projected lifetime of 18 months. This requires that the assembled satellite be subject to rigorous testing to expose flaws and problems in various areas, which will be addressed to the respective Engineering Team. As many faults must be discovered at this point as is possible to ensure the success of the project. Among the large number of tests to be performed are exposure to radiation and severe vibration. The T&E team leader orchestrates this process, and works closely with the C.T.O. and all the other Engineering Teams in order to iron out the problems with the first prototype and make changes to the flight model. It is the C.T.O.’s duty to ensure delivery of the launch-ready satellite following the T&E phase.

The current Engineering Division executives are:

Chief Technical Officer:	George Chi Hon Lam
Mechanical Team Leader:	Chris Hales
Electrical Team Leader:
Flight Computer Team Leader:
Payloads Team Leader:
Integration Team Leader:
Testing & Evaluation Team Leader:

	Author: Vaenthan Thiru © The Author, the BLUEsat project or UNSW. All rights reserved. Last Modified: August 28 2005 10:43:58.