• MARMOTSat (Mission for Atmospheric Radio Measurements with Open-source Technology Satellite) is a 3U CubeSat (a satellite 340 mm x 100 mm x 100 mm), that is designed and built in-house by students at the University of Victoria (UVic) Centre for Aerospace Research (CfAR). MARMOTSat also features major contributions by volunteers from the UVic Satellite Design (UVSD) engineering team.

    MARMOTSat is British Columbia’s submission to the Canadian Space Agency CubeSats Initiative in Canada for STEM (CUBICS) program.

    The MARMOTSat mission has two primary objectives:

    1.) Train Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP) in space science and technology by providing an unrivaled, hands-on learning experience for undergraduate and graduate students. 

    2.) Facilitate the University of Victoria Propagation Laboratory’s research into the correlation between the composition and structure of the ionosphere and human made climate change related activities.

  • All HQP involved in the project are university students (undergraduate and graduate) from UVic that contribute to MARMOTSat by volunteering, or working full-time as part of co-operative education programs. Some members have graduated and continue to work full-time as researchers to gain further experience. Students gain experience in space science and technology by designing, manufacturing, testing, and operating a custom-built spacecraft to complete the science objective. Both the satellite and ground station are designed, assembled, tested, and operated by students.

  • MARMOTSat will demonstrate a novel approach to ionospheric measurement through transionospheric sounding by satellite. MARMOTSat space and ground segments are innovated, and entirely built by students (with the exception of the ADCS, which is provided by CubeSpace). This project builds off the successes of the previous ORCASat mission where alumni gained unique and extremely valuable hands-on experience from their contributions to the ORCASat project. Over 25 full time co-operative education students have gained experience from working on ORCASat. Over 150 part-time volunteer students have contributed to ORCASat and learned about space mission design. This number continues to grow with development on MARMOTSat and following the satellite launch students will gain experience with day-to-day mission operations and flying the satellite. We are growing the next generation of Canadian space scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs in British Columbia that will change the future of the space industry in Canada.

  • Currently, MARMOTSat is undergoing Assembly, Integration, and Testing of flight systems building up to launch on Transporter 17 from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, in July 2026.

  • GRCON 2024, Knoxville, TN, USA

    • Paper: 29 MHz LEO Satellite SDR LFM Radar for Citizen Ionospheric Science

    • Talk: Modular CubeSat Radio, A New GNU Radio Compatible Open Source Modular SDR Platform for LEO Space Applications

    • Lightning Talk: Increasing the Hermes Lite 2 TX Bandwidth

    CASI ASTRO 2024, Toronto, ON, Canada

    • Talk: Modular CubeSat Radio

    • Talk: Evaluation of Alternative Battery Chemistries for Nanosatellite Applications

    CSC 2025, Montreal, QC, Canada

  • https://victoriabuzz.com/2026/05/uvic-students-will-send-a-miniature-satellite-into-earths-orbit-this-summer/

Want to Build Satellites Too?

The MARMOTSat team started from undergraduates volunteering for a satellite design engineering club. Are you a student at UVic? If you want to get involved, the best place to start is through your university’s undergraduate satellite design club.

 

Special Thank-You to Our Local Industry

 
 

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