CubeSat Vibration Testing: ORCASat Flight and Prototype Units

This is a video showcasing the vibration test procedure that we performed on the ORCASat prototype and flight units. The test was performed at the NRC Flight Research Lab (a project sponsor) in Ottawa, Canada. The spacecraft is in the hard mount configuration with the CubeSat deployer provided by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The NRC had tested with this deployer before and had an adapter plate ready to go to mount it to their shaker table. We first tested the prototype spacecraft in X, Y, and Z axes. To switch from X to Y/Z axes, the entire deployer is rotated 90 degrees on the adapter plate. The spacecraft then is removed from the deployer and rolled 90 degrees between the Y and Z axes. The flight unit is tested in a similar manner. Post-shake test, we ran through the deployment sequence on the prototype and flight units, but we prevented the antenna from being deployed on the flight unit as this is the final vibration test, and the antenna requires some disassembly to be re-armed. We don't show every axis of every spacecraft being tested in this video to save time, so its just a collection of clips taken from testing both.

Please visit our website for more information: https://www.orcasat.ca/

Special thank-you to Viresh, Luc, Jonathan, and the rest of the NRC for sponsoring this project, and being so hopeful and friendly during our test.