For my senior-year Satellite Design class at NCSSM, I built and flight-tested a CubeSat-style prototype. The project brought mechanical assembly, wiring, sensing, and software into one small package.
The final assembly included a Raspberry Pi, battery pack, solar panel, camera, and inertial measurement unit (IMU). I wrote the telemetry software to record sensor readings alongside timestamped images, making it possible to connect what the camera saw with the prototype’s measured motion.
What the flight test showed
The final test captured ten images alongside acceleration and magnetic-field readings over roughly ten seconds. The presentation below includes the hardware layout, flight images, data table, and observations from the test.
One practical takeaway was that image timing and exposure settings deserved as much attention as the electronics. Collecting data is only useful if the images and measurements are clear enough to interpret together.
Explore the telemetry code on GitHub