Proves - Alcyone Spacecraft

One of five satellites in the joint The PROVES Project CubeSat educational mission.

One of five satellites in the joint The PROVES Project CubeSat mission. The Pleiades Rapid Orbital Verification Experiment System PROVES Project is an extension of the Pleiades CubeSat Cluster, an inter university initiative aimed at testing open-source CubeSat architectures, promoting low cost CubeSats for educational access to space, and creating infrastructure that enhances access and interest in the radio art through satellite communications.

It is a 1U CubeSat with the following functions.

1. Provide digital packet relay services in both UHF and S-Band to the amateur radio community as a primary mission.
2. Allow amateur operators route packets to other satellites in the PROVES cluster to be repeated.
3. Employ a wide field imager to take an image of a 3D printed lion (the mascot of Columbia University) with the Earth in the background. Once these images have been reviewed by Alcyone mission operations, one will be selected as an “image of the day” that can be requested and downlinked by radio amateurs around the world, per instructions posted on our website.

All of the satellites participating in The PROVES Project mission will offer digital packet relay services to the amateur radio community as a primary mission. Whenever possible, radio amateurs will also be invited to attempt to route packets between the satellites using our open source DRIFT (Dynamic Relay for Intersatellite Fault Tolerance) protocol, published on our website.

We will also publish the open source design of the PROVES Ground Station Kit. This design describes the essential hardware and software required for an amateur operator to construct a ground station capable of downlink and uplink to the PROVES satellites via UHF.

PROVES - Atlas will attempt to engage and educate students and radio amateurs around the world with an understanding of the impact of space mission geometry on radio communications through its onboard attitude determination system. By making attitude information available to amateurs contacting the satellite, the radio operators can experiment with optimal orientations and timings for ideal link performance. 

Use a commoditized CubeSat architecture to provide effective and sustainable educational opportunities for future generations of the space industry.

California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, will partner with five other universities and offer a pathway enabling students to design, test, launch, and operate a low-cost educational 1U CubeSat within one academic year.

• PLATFORM - PROVES