University of Victoria – ORCASat Team

The University of Victoria – ORCASat Team designs and builds 2U CubeSats. Their primary product is the Optical Reference Calibration Satellite (ORCASat), a 2U CubeSat designed to demonstrate new technologies for calibrating Earth-based telescopes by providing a reference light source in orbit. The ORCASat was designed and built in-house by students at the University of Victoria (UVic) Centre for Aerospace Research, with contributions from volunteers at UVic Satellite Design, UBC Orbit, and SFU Sat student engineering teams. It was launched aboard CRS-26 from Kennedy Space Center to the ISS on November 26, 2022, and deployed to low Earth orbit on December 29, 2022. Atmospheric re-entry was completed on July 7, 2023. The team's customers include the Canadian CubeSat Project (CCP), for which ORCASat was British Columbia’s submission. The team is headquartered at the University of Victoria. They have flight heritage with one unit, ORCASat, which was launched and deployed to LEO. The team also focuses on training Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP) in space science and technology through hands-on learning experiences for undergraduate and graduate students.