Christopher Teale
telephone: 07444247476
email: 2700783t@student.gla.ac.uk
https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0000-0003-3316-4717
Research title: Payloads and mission applications for novel femtosatellite platforms
Research Summary
The miniaturization of consumer electronics has led to a common trend, throughout multiple engineering disciplines, of making things smaller. In space, this means smaller satellites that are cheaper to design, build, and launch. However, miniaturization has its limits; electronics have become so small that quantum effects in transistors have become a limiting factor. Furthermore, the performance of sensors and instrumentation is often directly affected by scale. An obvious example is optics, where focal length and the area of the light-collecting surface play key roles to determine magnification and contrast respectively. Caught between the potential benefits of miniature space systems, and the limits of technology, my research is directed towards understanding what applications are suitable, and what new capabilities are enabled by femto-satellites (mass<100g). As a Space Systems engineer, I am interested in understanding how femto-satellites can be creatively implemented to achieve scientific and commercial goals that are not feasible with larger spacecraft.