Calgary’s first student-built satellite to launch in 2026

University of Calgary students are preparing to make local history with their project: launching the city’s first-ever satellite to study a rare purple light in the sky.

FrontierSat is a CubeSat, a nanosatellite about the size of a loaf of bread, and designed and built by students from the Schulich School of Engineering and the Faculty of Science.

It’s set to study a rare aurora-like phenomenon known as STEVE, or Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement.

Additionally, it will carry the Miniaturized Plasma Image developed by Dr. Jonathan Burchill, an assistant professor and advisor to the student space team, to measure the “winds and temperatures of charged particles” in the Earth’s atmosphere.

The satellite, which has been years in the making, passed vibration tests to ensure it can survive the journey to space with the mission to study STEVE.

“This little camera here with the remove before flight is going to be used by our attitude determination and control system to kind of focus on earth and help the satellite orient itself,” explained Aarti Chandiramani, a geomatics and aerospace engineering student.

After years of work, rigorous testing, and securing a launch spot aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9, the students are one step closer to seeing their satellite orbit more than 500 kilometres above Earth.

Through this project, they hope to encourage future generations to get into space science.

“This is makeable by people that don’t have a lot of experience, which is pretty cool,” Pierre Dawe, a mechanical engineering graduate student, told CityNews.

“Space is a lot more available than people think … with the right resources and organization and support for universities and like larger governing bodies.”

FrontierSat will launch into space in early 2026.