ORCASat is a 2U CubeSat that deployed from the International Space Station in December of 2022. Its mission is to use a laser to calibrate telescopes on the ground.

ORCASat started in 2018 when the Canadian Space Agency funded the Canadian CubeSat Project, which was an initiative to build and launch a CubeSat in each province and territory. The University of Victoria was the lead university on the project, and I became involved as a result of a collaboration with SFU.

I was the co-lead of the Command and Data Handling team responsible for delivering the onboard computer and the ground segment software. We were a team of 5-10 who started as students and continued as volunteers after graduation. It turns out that it’s hard to leave a project once you graduate when you know it’s going to eventually get sent to space!