Fleeter and the Brown students believe that their initial analysis of the publicly available tracking data serves as a proof of concept that this type of sail can be part of an effort to reduce the number of space debris in orbit around Earth. They hope similar sails can be added to other same-sized devices or scaled up to larger projects in the future.

“The theory and physics of how this works has been pretty well accepted,” Fleeter said. “What this mission showed was more about how you realize it — how you build a mechanism that does that, and how you do it so it’s lightweight, small and affordable.”

The project is a result of a collaboration between researchers at Brown’s School of Engineering and the National Research Council of Italy. It is also supported by D-Orbit, AMSAT-Italy, La Sapienza-University of Rome and the NASA Rhode Island Space Grant. The name of the satellite is a play on Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the Earth, and is also an acronym for the project participants.

This is the second small satellite designed and built by Brown students that’s been sent into orbit in recent years. The previous satellite, EQUiSat, did 14,000 loops around the Earth before ending its mission and burning up upon re-entering the atmosphere at the end of 2020.

SBUDNIC, however, is believed to be the first of its kind that was sent into orbit made almost exclusively from materials not designed for use in space and at such an astronomically low-cost when compared to other objects in orbit. The total cost of the student-designed cube satellite was about $10,000.

“The large complex space missions we hear about in the news are amazing and inspiring, but they also send a message that space is only for those types of specialized initiatives,” Fleeter said. “Here, we’re opening up that possibility to more people… We’re not breaking down all the barriers, but you have to start somewhere.”

Engineered by students at Brown

The satellite was designed and built in one year by a group of about 40 students — about half from Brown’s School of Engineering with others from fields as diverse as economics, international relations and sculpture. It started in the course ENGN 1760: Design of Space Systems, which Fleeter taught in Spring 2021. Italian aerospace company D-Orbit approached with an opening for a satellite on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that would launch in one year. Fleeter turned to his students, who had just listened to their first seminars on space systems design and presented them the opportunity.

From there, the race was on.

The students began by conceptualizing and designing the individual subsystems of the satellite, often working with industry advisors who provided feedback and engineering guidance on the feasibility of their proposals. Students then put their plans into action, managing the technical aspects of the satellite along with coordinating the administrative pieces. The continual prototyping, testing and improving required amounted to a herculean effort from students in terms of hours and brain power.

“The Brown Design Workshop is very quiet at 4 a.m., and I’ve been there during that time more times than I can count,” said Marco Cross, who graduated from Brown last year with a master’s degree in biomedical engineering and served as chief engineer for SBUDNIC.

Students purchased materials they needed at local stores and online retail websites. They often had to engineer nifty workarounds to their materials so they could survive in space. The approach often meant coming up with test apparatuses that replicated specific environmental conditions of space, like the high vibration from the rocket launch, Cross said. For instance, the team used reptile heating lamps in a vacuum chamber to test the thermal shield they created to protect the satellite’s electronics from the sun.

To be cleared for launch, the satellite had to pass qualification tests and meet strict rules and regulations that SpaceX and NASA follow. “It is a zero-failure-tolerated environment,” Cross said. “The team never wavered.”

The students got the green light after a series of vacuum, thermal and vibration tests. A group then traveled to Cape Canaveral in Florida to deliver SBUDNIC so it could be inserted into D-Orbit’s larger carrier satellite, which was then put onto the SpaceX rocket.

Students said the project helped them think of themselves as creators and innovators, and that experience ingrained in them lessons they’ll use well into the future.

“I went on to use what I learned on this program to intern at Lockheed Martin Space,” said Selia Jindal, a senior at Brown and one of the project leads. “This project truly helped shape how I see the world and has been extremely influential in shaping my undergrad experience. This sentiment is not unique to me. Many team members, like me, came into SBUDNIC with no prior experience in the space industry and left pursuing paths in the field. We have SBUDNIC alumni across the industry — from pursuing Ph.D.s to engineering at SpaceX.”

Along with presenting their findings at conferences and submitting their data to a publication, the SBUDNIC team is currently planning a series of presentations in schools throughout Rhode Island. They hope to inspire future innovators and make high school students more aware of the opportunities that exist for them in space engineering and design.