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Supporting our Community: Bluesat UNSW

Edcon steel - Supporting Community_ Bluesat UNSW

From designing safer buildings to creating efficient transportation systems, engineers play a crucial role in society. They tackle complex problems and develop solutions that improve the quality of life.

At Edcon, we are passionate about supporting the next generation of engineers and are proud sponsors of Bluesat, a student society for space engineering projects at the University of NSW (UNSW).

We talked with Gregory, the President of Bluesat UNSW, about the group’s latest projects and their partnership with Edcon Steel.

Bluesat UNSW

Bluesat was established almost thirty years ago and holds the title of the first student project society at UNSW.

“Bluesat is a student space engineering project society for UNSW” Gregory explains.

“It started in 1997 as a passion project for a small group of students, who built a single CubeSat, which is a small satellite. Since then, we have grown significantly in numbers, with around 60 members from almost every engineering school within the university.”

Bringing together the most dedicated and brightest young minds in space engineering, Bluesat supports students in the university community to achieve engineering excellence, learn teamwork and grow their confidence.

The group is currently working on three major projects, including a satellite-tracking ground station and a high-altitude balloon platform. This year also saw Bluesat reinvigorate its Offworld Robotics project, which will enter its first rover challenge since 2019 in March next year.

Major Projects

Satellite Tracking Groundstation

Bluesat built and maintained a K17 satellite tracking ground station as support for the duration of the UNSW EC0 (QB50-AU02) cubesat mission, maintaining a mission critical data connection.

While developing their portable satellite tracking ground station, the Bluesat team has repeatedly captured and processed data from NOAA satellites to test their capabilities and improve their members’ understanding of the scope of this mission.

Moving forward, the Bluesat team plans to extend this ground station’s capabilities to maintain an uplink and downlink connection with their high-altitude balloon, and later their own CubeSat in low Earth orbit.

High Altitude Balloon Platform

Bluesat’s High Altitude Balloon Platform project was put on hold during the COVID slowdowns of 2020 but has since returned with a new team. The new team is starting from the ground up, with UNSW interested in carrying a research payload and targeting various competitive research grants.

“High-altitude balloon missions are your weather balloon type projects, except we are using them for testing satellite hardware before they get launched into space,” Gregory explains.

“These projects started back in 2012, and we received a grant from NATO in 2017 to fly a synthetic aperture radar, which was going to be used as an option for disaster relief missions.

Australian Rover Challenge

Bluesat has recently reinvigorated its Offworld Robotics project and is entering its first rover challenge since 2019.

“We will be heading to Adelaide in March next year to participate in the Australian Rover Challenge,” Gregory says.

The Australian Rover Challenge (ARCh) is an annual robotics competition held by the University of Adelaide. Students from across the globe battle it out in a full-scale Lunar mission, using semi-autonomous rovers that they have designed and built themselves.

Competitors showcase their skills in a custom-built simulated lunar environment and complete various tasks including navigation, resource, and construction. Unlike many other international rover competitions, which focus on Martian exploration, the ARCh focuses on completing tasks on a simulated Lunar surface.

Following the Australian Rover Challenge, Bluesat will target the European Rover Challenge and the international University Rover Competition to further develop its platform.

Partnership with Edcon Steel

Gregory has been a customer of Edcon Steel for a long time, so it was a natural choice when sourcing products for the Bluesat projects.

“We get a lot of raw material from Edcon Steel, as we do all our manufacturing at the university,” Gregory explains.

“Our most recent order was for stainless steel hex bar, which will be used for drive shafts in the motors of our rover.”

When asked why he chooses from Edcon Steel, Gregory said: “The biggest selling point for me is that Edcon’s website is so easy to use.”

“You can see the products online, see prices, order custom-cutting, and have it delivered. And the product range is great. There hasn’t been a product that we haven’t been able to find. “

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