Our roundtable discussion on flight software development and testing continues! In the second half of the discussion, Craig Knoblauch, Vivek Chacko, and I detail our experiences with conducting systems level testing for Phoenix, handling student turnover and recruitment, and how we structured our time with development and testing in the lab while also managing our classes as full time students.

Phoenix was Arizona State University’s first student-led CubeSat to be launched into space in Feb. 2020. It’s objectives aimed to educate undergraduate students on the concepts of space mission engineering and to collect thermal images of U.S. cities to study the Urban Heat Island Effect.

Learn more about Phoenix at the project website: phxcubesat.asu.edu