1st attempt at reaching UNB space satellite did not go as planned

Satellite Violet has about 20 missed calls from Earth.

The team at University of New Brunswick'sFredericton campus attempted to make first contact with theirproject satellite on Friday afternoon. But Violet didn't answer.

Satellite Violet is one among many satellites taking part in the Canadian Space Agency's Canadian CubeSat project, which trains post-secondary students todevelopa satellite and carryout a space mission with it.

A Falcon 9 rocket from NASA took Violet to the International Space Station in early March, and the station launched it into the Earth's orbit on Thursday.

"The international space station is visible," announced the computer at the ground station, a control room at UNB's Gillin Hall, indicating that Violet was approaching over New Brunswick.

The satellite passed through the most favourable position of contact between 12:26 p.m. and 12:34 p.m. on Friday.

"What I am doing is entering a command that asks Violet to transmit its information to us," said Troy Lavigne, the project officer on the Violet team.

WATCH |'We are past the point where we had the strongest signal':

VIOLET phone home? UNB attempts to make contact with N.B. satellite

5 months ago

Duration 3:44

The first attempt from the UNB ground station to reach the cube satellite launched from the International Space Station was unsuccessful, but the students are not giving up.

Lavigne sent several messages to the mini-satellite, while others in the room anxiously awaited a response.

"I am going tokeep trying as we hit elevation," he said, as Violet was orbiting away.

Despite numerous attempts from Lavigne, Violet remained quiet.

"I suspect that although we may not be communicating with Violet right now, I am very interested to see if the Canadian Space Agency was able to pickup any of Violet's transmissions," he said after one of his lastattempts.

"So we're past a point where we expect we would be able to communicate with Violet now," said Lavigne.

Expensive mini-satellite

More than 300 people, including 274 engineering students from theUniversity of New Brunswick, Universit de Moncton and the New Brunswick Community College in Saint John, have been involved since 2018 in building the satellite,according to Brent Petersen, a professor in the UNB department of electrical and computer engineering.

UNB is responsible for the controlling and communication phases of the satellite, meaning that they will conduct the experiments and troubleshoot any software or technical challenges, Petersen saidin a previous interview.

Violetis named after New Brunswick's provincial flower and is about the size of a loaf of bread.

It measures 10 by10 by20 centimetresand the work was guided and funded by the Canadian Space Agency at a cost of about $200,000. Another $200,000 was granted by the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, Petersen said.

Hoping it wasan Earth issue

Joudi Al-Lathqani, one of the students involved in making the satellite, said she watched the deployment with her family on Thursday.

"It was very exciting," she said.

"I did have to reschedule a few things because I really wanted to be able to witness the first contact, and even if it had not worked, it was still exciting to see, like, the anticipation of it," she said.

Al-Lathqani said she is still optimistic that the satellite will respond to future attempts, and it already felt like success when her group's project reached space.

She was nervous about it being a mechanical issuebut Lavigne's words, suggesting a possible reception issue, werecomforting.

"I am hoping the issue is more down here, which is easy to fix than it is up there because it is very difficult to do much about what is going on up there," she said.

Travis Stewart, a UNB student who worked on writing the software for the ground station, to allow transmission of signals, said he was "fairly confident that it is the right thing we are transmitting."

He said the receiving software could have an issue, but it worked when the team ran tests.

"When your satellite's up in space and actually, you know, transmitting signals from there, things are a lot different than they are in the lab here," he said.

He said he was a little nervous at the beginning, but was not surprised how things turned out.

"Because it didn't work this time it just means that we have more work to do and to figure out where things went wrong ... but that is just a part of the job."

"There absolutely is still hope," said Stewart.

Lavigne said there is a chance the Canadian Space Agency may have received some signals, but he's hasn't comfirmed that yet.

The ground station system will be set on automated mode to keep attempting to establish contact whenever Violet crosses over New Brunswick.

The next contact will be made after 3 a.m. Saturday morning, and the team is hopeful to wake up to a call.