ALEASAT is an Earth-observation satellite developed by the UBC ORBIT Satellite Design Team and the SFU Satellite Design Team, designed to assist in disaster relief operations and provide real-time imagery to radio amateurs. Equipped with an on-board camera, ALEASAT allows users to request targeted images of specific locations on Earth and directly downlink the data from the satellite. This project can serve as a precursor to a future constellation dedicated to disaster monitoring. Alongside the satellite itself, the team is building the necessary ground station infrastructure for effective communication with ALEASAT. With support from University of British Columbia, University of Simon Fraser, the Radio Amateurs of Canada, and the European Space Agency's Fly Your Satellite! Programme, the team is currently in the process of building and testing the satellite, with the goal of launching it in the coming years.

During my time as a Spacecraft Hardware Developer with UBC ORBIT, I contributed to the development of the communication subsystem for ALEASAT. My role included integrating the RF communications board at 433 MHz and the antenna deployer board, ensuring they operated reliably. I also helped design a half-duplex radio system using OpenLST software-defined radio and the CC1110 low-power SoC, achieving a 40% reduction in the bit error rate (BER). Additionally, our team automated link budget calculations using Python, optimized communication link performance, and conducted reliability testing for the antenna deployment mechanism.