UCI CubeSat is a student-led engineering team working to develop, build, test, and launch UCI’s first 2U CubeSat, AntSat01. Our interdisciplinary undergraduate team is organized across six subteams: Avionics, Communications, Operations, Power, Structures, and Systems. From modeling and simulation to hardware integration, testing, and debugging, students have direct ownership of the spacecraft development process and the opportunity to work with real satellite systems. Under the guidance of our advisors, Professors Shimane and Lee, AntSat01 serves as a platform for hands-on experience with spacecraft systems while supporting space research and development at UCI. Our mission also provides a foundation for continued research into phage therapy in microgravity in collaboration with the Whiteson Lab at UCI. By combining student engineering, interdisciplinary research, and real spaceflight systems, UCI CubeSat aims to expand undergraduate opportunities in spacecraft development, establish a foundation for future student-led missions, and contribute to the advancement of scalable space technologies.
UCI CubeSat
Summary
Current Work / Recent Updates
Our students have built AntSat01's core electronics in-house, including the avionics flight computer, a custom UHF RF transceiver board, and a power board with solar MPPT, while our Structures team runs FEA simulations to check our designs against NASA CubeSat standards. With support from Northrop Grumman, Parker, Ansys, Terran Orbital, and the Samueli School of Engineering, we have now secured a suborbital flight with Exos Aerospace in New Mexico, targeted for July 2027, with two launches expected. These flights will let us test our platform in a real flight environment well before our low Earth orbit mission, planned for around 2028. They will also carry a science payload: a bacteriophage experiment with Whiteson Lab at UCI studying how short-term microgravity affects phage stability and early phage-host interaction.AntSat-1 has a suborbital test flight with Exos Aerospace in New Mexico, targeted for July 2027. The flight will carry the Whiteson Lab's bacteriophage experiment as its payload. It's our first chance to see flight hardware and the science payload perform in a real launch environment, and a stepping stone toward our low Earth orbit mission planned for around 2028.
Team Structure
Avionics
Designs and programs the satellite’s “brain”: the flight computer, attitude determination and control algortihsm (detumbling, sun-pointing), and onboard fault protection.
Communications
Builds the UHF radio link between AntSat-1 and our campus ground station, including the RF hardware chain, antenna systems, and the software-defined radio pipeline that decodes telemetry and science data.
Power
Designs the electrical power system that keeps the satellite alive: solar panels, battery management, and power distribution across every operating mode, from launch through years in orbit.
Structures
Engineers the spacecraft's mechanical structure and deployable systems (solar panels, antenna), and manages the thermal environment that protects sensitive electronics in the extremes of space.
Systems
Integrates every subsystem into one working spacecraft, owns requirements and verification, and writes the operational playbook that governs how AntSat01 is built, tested, launched, and flown.
Operations
Leads sponsorship and fundraising, outreach, media, organizational development, and external engagement while helping communicate the team's technical work to the university, industry, and broader community.