Presentation Synopsis:

“DELDELFI-PQ: LESSON AFTER ALMOST 1 YEAR IN SPACE”

Delfi-PQ was launched on January 13th 2022 on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral: the satellite was the culmination of the work of a group of students and staff members from the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands. Activities were carried out by students as part of their educational curriculum in Aerospace engineering and included the design, integration and testing of the satellite. After the satellite has been deployed, students also got involved in operations and data analysis demonstrating the satellite can be an excellent tool for education. After 9 months in space, the satellite is still operational and the team in Delft identified some anomalous behaviours and worked hard to implement a solution. Thanks to the in-flight software update capabilities, satellite systems can be updated to improve performance and solve existing problems.

The main problem encountered is related to the satellite's thermal modelling, making the onboard battery colder than expected and limiting the satellite's capabilities. A software patch has been designed to increase the energy usage to improve the satellite self-heating and will be uploaded in Q4 2022.

This presentation will provide more details on the mission launch and operations, clearly showing the value of such satellites for educational activities. The lesson learnt after the satellite development and first operational phase will also be presented to help new teams start with their mission.