Publication
The student association EPFL Spacecraft Team is currently deploying a fully automated multi-band ground station on the EPFL campus. This effort is mainly motivated by the upcoming CHESS CubeSat mission, scheduled for launch in 2027. The GS versatility opens the door to a wide range of applications, including radio astronomy or Space Situational Awareness, and benefits from a cost-effectiveness that is unprecedented to the authors' knowledge on a student project level. The GS currently operates in UHF and L-band with respective emission gains of 16.5 and 21 dBi. An additional high-gain X-band antenna is to be commissioned by Q2 2025. This improvement makes the GS compliant with the strong link requirements of the CHESS mission, allowing it to not only support both TT&C down and up-links but also high-rate scientific data downlinks with an expected gain of 40 dBi thanks to its 2.4m reflector. The rising academic support is poised to empower the project's momentum, and several collaborations are under discussion with laboratories, amateur satellite projects and external organizations such as SatNogs for the testing of the GS sensing devices among other goals. The team's approach proved to achieve outcomes that stand up to professional standards within a competitive budget, outlining how the space sector and more specifically the ground segment can benefit from student initiatives combined with open science and knowledge transfer proper to the associative world.
Jie Wu, Volker Gass, Maurice Borgeaud