We are Manchester Satellite Development Group, MSDG for short.
We are a university society who were fortunate enough to be granted a fund from RS in order to help further our society, but we should probably tell you what we do.
So, MSDG is a society associated with the University of Manchester. We are chiefly concerned with designing, building, and launching remote sensing can-sized satellites (also known as a cansat). We aim to help STEM students develop integral skills such as collaboration, programming, and aeronautical skills while also focusing on national and international competitions. We are also one of two teams in the whole of the UK to compete against other universities across the globe. In the 2018 AAS Cansat Competition we historically achieved first place and managed an impressive 3rd place in 2020, and compete every year.
The team proudly displaying their cansat at the AAS competiton last year
Speaking of competitions, we are involved in two main competitions. One is known as the UK competition, where universities all around the UK will compete against each other to build the best satellite. We use this competition mainly as a way to find budding engineers who want to gain experience for our main competition, known as the AAS competition. Our society runs workshops in the leadup to the UK competition, where members of our committee run workshops instructing people on how to build a robust cansat. Think of it like this: We are a football club, the UK competition is like our “academy”. Our “players” build up experience in the academy, until they eventually acquire enough skills to be put on the "first team" aka the AAS competition (I am so sorry if this sports metaphor does not resonate).
Early design of a cansat
So how exactly does someone compete against somebody else to build a satellite? Well, there’s a few metrics against which satellites are judged. The obvious one being the apogee it can reach (a fancy way to say how high can you make your satellite go?). Another metric is telemetry (again, fancy word), which basically means: can your satellite, while being several hundred feet in the air, process and transmit data back down to a ground station? Another fun aspect of competition is whether or not your cansat is able to carry a payload with it safely without damaging it. Of course, some things never change from high school, and the payload tends to be an egg. So don’t be fooled, its not simply just engineering skills that these competitions test you on, which is why we are on the lookout for a wide variety of people, who have a plethora of different skills.
The AAS team watching their cansat launch (hope that egg is okay)
On that note, we should also show you how we form our teams for AAS competitions. We usually split our team into two distinct sections: mechanical and electrical. Within these two sub-teams, we have a lead (or sometimes two leads) for each role, who are responsible for managing their group and making sure that work is moving along smoothly. We also have an integration lead, their main is responsibility is to well…integrate the two teams together and make sure that proper communication between teams is taking place. Just because you may have a team of ten talented individuals in one room doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to build a great cansat. Communication is equally important a skill as technical know-how in this competition. The electrical team needs to know how big the dimensions of the cansat are, in order to make sure their electronics are able to fit. The mechanical team needs to be able to optimise the shape of their cansat for the atmosphere, but also for fitting electronics within it. Of course, nothing turns out perfectly, but communication and compromise in these types of situations is so incredibly vital, and leads to effective teamwork.
This was our team layout a couple of years (note the diversity of degrees we have!!!)
Generally, competitions tend to have a preliminary design review (PDR) stage before any satellites get sent flying. If a cansat scores well on PDR, then that team is invited to the competition to launch their satellite and compete. MSDG has historically performed very well on this, scoring 97.08%,96.79% and 98.7% for the past three years, so suffice it to say, we are very consistently invited to AAS to launch our cansat, having done so 9 years in a row. Again, this is another skill that the society asks of you, can you present a convincing design, so convincing in fact that they give you permission to launch it into the sky?
Our concept for a cansat a few years back
Being a part of the competition is a whole different beast, experts from NASA itself come to witness the skills of these young engineers. After PDR, teams are officially invited to the competition and have to undergo the next stage, critical design review (CDR), which is essentially a continuation of PDR, where teams present what improvements they’ve made to their cansat since the PDR period. After CDR, teams are invited to present a flight readiness review, in which they must present in person to experts, detailing how their cansat is fit to take the skies and achieve the mission objectives that have been set out (telemetry, carrying a payload)
Further concept work of an older cansat
So, what is MSDG up to right now? Well, at the moment, we have just done our PDR for the upcoming 2025 AAS competition, and progress is going well on our cansat. The UK team is going strong with their workshops, and are preparing for a launch sometime in June. We are incredibly grateful to RS for the help they have provided us, it has been invaluable to us. It’s no surprise that an engineering society needs a lot of components, so RS providing us with equipment was incredibly beneficial. We were able to acquire respirators from their fund, which makes a lot of our activities a lot safer, especially since soldering is a big part of creating electrical components, and proper ventilation allows us to keep each other and ourselves safe.
We hope that our journey can inspire our fellow engineers to go out and join their respective engineering societies, it will allow you to develop a lot more skills than you’d give it credit for. In particular, it will develop those skills that simply sitting down and studying for hours at a time can’t give you. In a world like today’s, it's best if you can try and communicate with those around you, handle teamwork and practice compromise. If you plan on studying at the university of Manchester, come find us during a societies' fair, or message us on Instagram (@uom_msdg) if you’re interested in knowing more about us!
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