6S CubeSat Project

6S is a 1U CubeSat that will be the first satellite entirely designed and built by students of Politecnico di Milano.

Our goal is to build a single unit satellite for solar cells and structural battery in-space testing, while also providing an opportunity to get hands-on experience and apply knowledge about mission and subsystems design in practice.

The phases of the mission are identified in order to satisfy the mission objectives:

• Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP)
• Nominal Testing Phase, in which basic payloads functioning is assessed and performance data is downlinked
• Off-nominal Testing Phase, in which all the payloads and the overall platform are stressed further
• Finally, the satellite is passivated, and natural decay is exploited.

Currently, we are in the Launch phase and have been granted the opportunity to conduct several tests through ESA's laboratories in ESEC. To proceed, we need to create a high fidelity mockup of the real satellite. 

The PCBs we are requesting will be used to create this test item which will be tested at the beginning of October. 

The support of PCBWay would be immensely beneficial to our team. As we focus on designing and constructing the CubeSat, we encounter difficulties in sourcing and manufacturing parts within our budget and timeline constraints. The access to the rapid prototyping capabilities of PCBWay is crucial for us to be prepared for ESA's Test Campaign. Furthermore, PCBWay's support would allow us to offer valuable design experience and feedback to a larger number of our team members, helping them to enhance their skills and knowledge.

We are excited about the opportunity to collaborate with PCBWay and achieve our goals through their assistance.

Here you can find some images of our satellite and us working at the mounting procedure of the test setup and the result of the work:

This is the CAD of the entire model which will be tested:

We promote outreach initiatives in schools to show the students what we do and to inspire in them the enthusiasm we have towards space.

Up to this date we are using a 3D printed mockup, in the future we would like to bring with us the model we will test with your PCBs inside.

Here you can see some of us explaining our project to some high school students: