How do I, a designer, end up working with nanosatellites?
I will never forget the time when I, an undergraduate designer, was told, -You are going to Finland to work with some engineers for a local startup-. My excitement at that moment was indescribable, since I had started my studies I always had in mind to participate in the acclaimed projects under the Design Thinking methodology such as the ME310 course with the SUGAR Network (Stanford University Global Alliance for Re-design). But for this opportunity, the event was even better, it would be the first time that a Latin American university would be part of the Product Development Project (PdP) at Aalto University, a challenge given and sponsored by real industry companies, who are open to collaborate and create in the innovative creation market. We would be for a few weeks in October at the launch of the project, then return to Colombia and work with our colleagues in Finland remotely and return in May to the Final Gala in Aalto.
In my mind everything was rosy and I was confident in my skills and passion for 3D design. In theory we were only supposed to create an accessory -nose cone- to improve the lifetime of the nanosatellites and that it would have a triangular prism shape. Until I discovered that our team of 10 students, only half of them were engineers, but also biologists, philosophers, fashion designers and business professionals. Here I asked myself, what are we going to do to move this project forward?
As in every project of the Design Thinking methodology, we first needed a problem, ours was that the nanosatellites have a standard size of 10 cubic cm and are launched into space under certain requirements with the main limitation that they go in a rack next to each other, so the accessory or roof -as we will call it- should be designed as a post-deployment mechanism to improve its aerodynamics and as a final result, increase its lifetime. Spoiler alert, upon arriving in Colombia and investigating, we discovered that in space, aerodynamics DO NOT EXIST 🙁
The trip with my classmates to Finland was fascinating, it was autumn 2019 and the experience of meeting and interacting with people from more than 10 different cultures and from every continent, has been one if not the best experience I’ve had so far. The first day at Aalto’s Design Factory, each team built a part of a huge Rube Goldberg machine (chain reaction-type) and the laughter was not lacking, but the best of all was the process of finding a way to connect the mechanisms of the previous team, to create new ones and again connect with the chain result of the next part of the machine.
During that week, we were discovering more and more about our project together with the company, understanding what we were facing and brainstorming the craziest things we could think of from the little we knew so far. Once back in Colombia, exhausted from our 18h+ trip but with more spirit and curiosity than ever, we started working every day on our project. Focused on the empathise process, or basically all the research and search of what we were facing. Juli, the biologist of our team was the one who came up with the perfect name for our team: Tardigrade. One of the few terrestrial animals characterized by being resistant to changes in gravity, or space.
Understanding the environment the nanosatellite faced was our main objective for this phase. And despite discovering that there are no aerodynamics in space and going through a crisis of how the heck we were going to help it without this factor for or against us, we found that when launched into LEO orbit (approximately 200-2000km from Earth) the CubeSats (nanosatellites) are challenged by airdrag (air acting in the opposite direction of objects), UV radiation, plasma and a bunch of other things that as a designer and an ordinary person I probably already forgot how it works.
The point here is that beyond having a background completely out of what the project required, as a team we realized that none of us really knew exactly what was going on in outer space. So our solution was to appeal to our skills and mainly to our creativity to land a result. We learned to do some SolidWorks modelling, use 3D printers, analyze mechanisms and materials within our reach that could be adapted to our needs to start our conception stage.
By this point, we started to see the light with the ideation -> prototyping -> testing -> feedback -> ideation -> prototyping -> testing -> feedback … and the cycle of the methodology itself. But not to bore you any more with technical concepts, let’s go to the point that COVID-19 – like everyone else – stopped us from travelling in 2020 to share with our friends all the new stories and incredible discoveries that each team had had about their crazy projects. However, with the implementation of this lifestyle, virtual-remote that humanity was forced to strengthen during the pandemic, I will always remember the PDP as one of the most enriching experiences in every way for my life. My first professional experience, international, remote, WITH NANOSATELLITES AND SPACE, isn’t it incredible?
But if you’re still wondering, how did it all end? We created a functional prototype that adapted to all the needs: spatial, materials and mechanics that they required and the Final Gala, clearly was a hybrid way, with our local colleagues in Finland, making an incredible presentation and us, from Colombia supporting them. From here I discovered that beyond being a designer, I am a person with a predominant curiosity and creativity for new things, especially if they are different from what I usually live with. And also, that someday, I would leave my country to discover the world and share the best of my culture with everyone. Today 2023, almost 4 years later, I am in Canada fulfilling my dreams 🙂
If you’ve come to this point, check these pics from Finland and definitely consider visiting there someday. The country and its people are amazing. Kiitos!
