One giant leap for Space Concordia

Members of the student-run astronautical association, Space Concordia, welcomed a film crew from the French-language TV broadcaster Canal Savoir into their headquarters earlier this year and explained how they designed and manufactured an award-winning satellite.

The students, Ivan Ivanov, Alex Teodor Ionita and Gregory Gibson, as well as their faculty mentor, Scott Gleason, contributed to the team effort that won the first-ever Canadian Satellite Design Challenge last September.

Their prize-winning satellite, ConSat-1, is expected to be launched by the European Space Agency later this year. Gleason, who participates on research projects with NASA, is the official project leader for the launch, but credit for designing and building the satellite goes entirely to students—most of them undergraduates.

Once in space, the satellite's mission will be to study the South Atlantic Anomaly, a near-Earth plasma cloud comprised of high-energy particles that are known to disrupt the instrumentation of spacecraft and aircraft. ConSat-1 will be the first satellite ever launched into space by a Quebec university.

Watch the video at  the Canal Savoir website:

Related links:
• Space Concordia
• Canal Savoir
• Concordia Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science