14–16 Oct 2019
Athens Conservatoire
Europe/Athens timezone

AcubeSAT: A lab-on-a-chip CubeSat mission from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

16 Oct 2019, 10:00
20m
Athens Conservatoire

Athens Conservatoire

Vasileos Georgiou B 17-19, Athina 106 75, Greece
Talk CubeSat Missions and Systems Talks

Speakers

Mr Ioannis Kotsakiachidis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)Mr Anastasis Retselis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)

Description

Plans for the return of humans to the Moon and the imminent manned exploration of Mars drive an increased need for research in the fields of space physiology and biology. This need can be fulfilled with low cost solutions such as CubeSats, by obtaining results from experiments which were previously possible only on crewed spacecraft such as the International Space Station and required maintenance from astronauts on-board.

The Aristotle Space & Aeronautics Team (A.S.A.T) is designing and building a 3U CubeSat to perform a biological experiment, probing the dynamic regulation of gene expression of eukaryotic cells in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), utilizing advances in Synthetic Biology and MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems). We aim to investigate the molecular mechanisms that are affected by space conditions and enable future high-throughput studies and easily scalable lab-on-a-chip applications, to assess the effects of spaceflight on living organisms.

Based at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, the team is composed of 40 students with the goal of participating in ESA Academy’s Fly Your Satellite! programme. Given the special requirements of the mission, including a pressurized compartment, a miniaturized optical microscope and a high amount of data to be downlinked, our team has come up with different solutions and approaches to system integration.

In this talk we will discuss the aforementioned design of the satellite, with an emphasis on our scientific payload, the challenges our team has faced so far and our contribution to the open source community.

Primary authors

Mr Ioannis Kotsakiachidis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) Mr Anastasis Retselis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) Mrs Ilektra Karakosta-Amarantidou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) Mr Iason Velentzas (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) Mr Asterios Arampatzis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) Mr Orestis Ousoultzoglou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) Mr Konstantinos Kanavouras (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) Mr Dimitrios Makris (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) Mr Grigorios Pavlakis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) Mr Charilaos Giannitsis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)

Presentation materials