Satellite built by N.B. students not responding a week after entering Earth’s orbit

Despite a week of unanswered calls, the student researchers behind Satellite Violet are optimistic they will reach the province's first-ever satellite sent into orbit.

Hundreds of post-secondary students in New Brunswick are patiently waiting for a call from Satellite Violet, launched into outer space last week. The student-built project took more than five years to develop at campuses across the province and is not communicating as expected.

The satellite was delivered by a rocket to the International Space Station in early March and sent into Earth’s orbit on Apr. 18. Satellite Violet, named after the provincial flower, is the first New Brunswick-built satellite to be blasted into space.

While those long-distance calls continue to go unanswered, Troy Lavigne, one of the program’s project officers, said it’s not a “giant” surprise that the satellite hasn’t responded immediately.

“There’s a fairly complicated system in place for us to communicate with Violet,” he said.

The bread-loaf-sized satellite was a joint effort among more than 300 students and faculty at the University of New Brunswick, the Université de Moncton, and New Brunswick Community College as part of the larger Canadian CubeSat project, involving 15 educational institutions throughout the country creating satellites.

Lavigne said Violet’s isolated behaviour could be explained by its antennas not deploying yet. If that’s the case, a fishing wire that’s holding the antenna down is expected to melt in a few weeks.

“We selected that fishing line because we know it will degrade naturally after a couple of weeks in outer space…then we will be able to communicate with Violet,” he explained.

The project’s objective is to study and collect data surrounding the uppermost part of the earth’s atmosphere, known as the ionosphere, for between three months to two years.