The five-year-old Philippine House Company (PhilSA) has huge ambitions in creating the nation’s house know-how and business. It has been engaged on greater and higher satellites — just like the soon-to-be-launched MULA satellite tv for pc — constructing on tasks from previous applications below the Division of Science and Know-how (DOST).
Even then, PhilSA continues to construct the smaller, under-the-radar satellites. It’s presently engaged on Maya-7, the seventh iteration of the Maya dice satellites. Labeled as nanosatellites, a Maya satellite tv for pc weighs a kilogram, with all sides of the dice satellite tv for pc measuring 10 centimeters. This satellite tv for pc can match within the palm of your hand.
Previous Maya satellites, though small, carried to house payloads or devices that carry out particular features; all of them had cameras for Earth statement from house.
The dice satellite tv for pc undertaking, nonetheless, has a much bigger mission on Earth.
Since 2016, the undertaking has been a platform for Filipino engineers to discover ways to construct satellites. The nanosatellite’s dimension makes it an economical option to domesticate a brand new breed of house engineers.
Underneath the undertaking, engineers have been studying the best way to outline satellite tv for pc missions, design fashions, construct the precise satellites, and check them earlier than launch. As soon as the satellites are in orbit, the engineers additionally discover ways to function them till the tip of the mission.
When it was nonetheless below the DOST, the undertaking launched six Maya satellites into house — from Maya-1 to Maya-6, all of which had already returned to Earth — and skilled 4 batches of Filipino engineers. Now, below PhilSA, a brand new staff has been engaged on Maya-7 within the Philippines since 2022.
Progress is exponential
PhilSA engineer Renzo Wee has been mentoring the Maya-7 staff, having had prior expertise as a part of the staff that constructed Maya-3 and Maya-4, the first-ever satellites constructed within the Philippines.
At first, the 29-year-old Wee knew virtually nothing about house methods engineering. He solely discovered concerning the undertaking when a pal requested him to use in 2018. On the time, he had been taking a niche 12 months after incomes his electronics and communications engineering diploma from the Ateneo de Zamboanga College.
“When this chance got here, it’s [a] little bit of a shaggy dog story as a result of I didn’t actually know at first that we have been creating satellites,” he stated. However Wee discovered nanosatellite engineering attention-grabbing as a result of it had one thing to do with house, which, he stated, was “each child’s dream.”
Wee acquired accepted as a part of the primary batch of scholars below the STeP-UP (House Science and Know-how Proliferation via College Partnerships) scholarship, carried out by the College of the Philippines (UP) Diliman in collaboration with Kyushu Institute of Know-how (Kyutech) in Japan.
The scholarship was below the DOST’s STAMINA4Space (House Know-how and Functions Mastery, Innovation, and Development) program. Whereas constructing the satellites, Wee needed to take the nanosatellite engineering monitor below a grasp of science or grasp of engineering in electrical engineering course at UP Diliman.
Being a part of a pioneer undertaking that kicked off in 2019, Wee discovered it formidable to develop satellites.
“Lahat kasi kinakapa pa lang kung paano ‘to gagawin (We have been taking part in all the things by ear),” he stated.
But the Maya-3 and Maya-4 staff members overcame that problem by specializing in their assigned duties and serving to one another when confronted with difficulties. And so, when the pandemic hit in 2020, they have been capable of pull via by establishing a system the place they might management the satellite tv for pc from their houses.
“[I’m proud] of the staff sa ginawa namin (I’m pleased with what our staff did),” Wee stated. “We pivoted and developed new methods. What we did [was] we [stuck] to our strengths and [covered each other for] our weaknesses.”
For Wee, collaborating within the Maya dice satellite tv for pc undertaking was like a rollercoaster trip and a studying expertise. From not figuring out loads, he can now converse with individuals about satellites while not having to have a look at his notes.
“The expansion [was] actually exponential,” he stated. “This system was designed so that you can study loads.”
Maya-3 and Maya-4 each reentered the Earth’s environment in 2022.
Mentorship is a two-way avenue
In distinction to Wee, Maya-7 engineer John Michael Rey Zamora had been following PhilSA’s actions because the company’s institution in 2019. He graduated from the Southern Luzon State College in Quezon province with an electronics and communications engineering diploma in 2018 and had been that means to use then.
“After ko pumasa ng boards, saktong kakatapos lang noong functions for [a] batch of STAMINA4Space [participants]. So, naisip ko midday: I feel siguro it’s not my time but.”
(After I handed the board examination, the STAMINA4Space functions had simply closed. So, I believed to myself: perhaps it’s not my time but.)
And so, Zamora first labored for the native personal business for three-and-a-half years. However in 2022, he got here throughout PhilSA’s name for functions for the ACCESS Nanosat (Advancing Core Competencies and Experience in House Research Nanosat) undertaking. The undertaking continued the dice satellite tv for pc program, which started below the DOST.
Zamora utilized and has since been working with seven different staff members on the Maya-7, whereas taking the nanosatellite engineering monitor below a grasp of science or grasp of engineering in electrical engineering course at UP Diliman.
However because the undertaking was simply starting, a problem already introduced itself to the staff: it turned out that the Maya-7 satellite tv for pc can be a two-unit dice satellite tv for pc — two dice satellites stacked on prime of one another. Which means the Maya-7 staff must strategy the undertaking in a different way from the previous groups who labored on Maya satellites.
The staff is lucky to have a whole lot of PhilSA engineers with prior expertise mentoring them. Apart from Wee, different PhilSA engineers who labored on the Maya, Diwata, and MULA satellites have been providing their concepts to the staff. PhilSA and Maya-1 engineer Adrian Salces is presently main your entire undertaking.
Nonetheless, this proved to be one other problem for Zamora and the staff through the early phases of the undertaking: among the many sea of concepts, that they had to determine the perfect strategy.
“Could iba’t ibang philosophy or iba-ibang strategy, perspective on the best way to do issues,” Zamora stated. “At first, sobrang complicated niya.”
(There have been totally different philosophies, approaches, and views on the best way to do issues. It was very complicated at first.)
However having totally different views is wholesome relating to constructing a satellite tv for pc.
“I perceive the confusion as a result of once you’re studying, even once you learn totally different books, the books gives you totally different examples and views,” Wee stated in a mixture of English and Filipino.
With the brand new concepts and ideas, the Maya-7 staff ultimately built-in their mentors’ greatest practices as they constructed the two-unit dice satellite tv for pc.
“The great factor truly in mentoring: it’s not likely a one-way avenue, it’s a two approach avenue. As a result of, in fact, the mentees have experiences of their very own.” Wee stated in a mixture of English and Filipino.
As for Salces, being a mentor doesn’t imply being excellent. “[The mentees] are additionally higher in some methods,” he stated. “You simply should hear.”
The Maya-7 staff is presently engaged on constructing the engineering mannequin of the Maya-7 satellite tv for pc. The engineering mannequin can be precisely the identical because the satellite tv for pc mannequin to be flown into house, but it surely’s meant to undergo exams to test if the satellite tv for pc would work primarily based on the staff’s design.
The staff has but to construct the flight mannequin that may be launched into house.
Persistence is a advantage
Salces, like Wee, by no means actually deliberate on changing into an area engineer.
He was a graduate pupil and college member of the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute at UP Diliman from 2014 to 2016. On the time, he was impressed by his mentor and thesis adviser, now-PhilSA Director Normal Joel Joseph Marciano Jr., to pursue house engineering.
So, in 2016, he took the chance to construct the primary Maya satellite tv for pc below Kyutech’s Joint International Multi-Nation Birds Undertaking whereas taking a doctoral in house engineering in Japan. Two years later, Maya-1 was launched into house.
The satellite tv for pc returned to Earth in 2020 after two years in orbit. In the identical 12 months, Salces returned to the Philippines after ending his doctoral research.
“Once I returned in 2020, I believed it will be greatest to make use of what I discovered and [the] experiences I gained to guide one other satellite tv for pc undertaking regionally. That’s after I began with PhilSA,” he stated.
Nonetheless, he had a tough time making use of what he discovered to the Maya-7 satellite tv for pc undertaking. Again in Japan, he was used to simply getting elements, making the satellite-building course of quick. Within the Philippines, manufacturing firms are usually not but totally outfitted to provide satellite tv for pc and spacecraft elements.
The Maya-7 staff has been working with these firms to provide such elements. This effort has been a part of PhilSA’s greater purpose of strengthening the nation’s house business.
As of this writing, some elements for Maya-7 from native producers haven’t but arrived. The staff has solved this problem by having the lacking elements 3D-printed to proceed to the meeting process trial.
The trial offers the staff a really feel of assembling the elements of the satellite tv for pc, which is a delicate and demanding course of. This prepares them for the precise meeting course of as soon as the elements are already full.
With extra time, Salces stated, the Maya-7 satellite tv for pc might be accomplished.
“And we are able to solely get higher. Kasi na-establish na namin ‘yung connections [with companies] (As a result of we’ve already established connections with firms),” he added. “We simply should be affected person.”
Now two years within the making, there has but to be an actual date for the launch of the Maya-7 satellite tv for pc.
For Wee, studying doesn’t cease after the Maya satellites are constructed. “Am I assured in what I’ve proper now, what I discovered? In fact not,” Wee stated. “Oo, marami na [‘kong] natutunan. Pero marami pa [‘kong] dapat matutunan.”
(Sure, I’ve already discovered loads. However I nonetheless have much more to study.) – Rappler.com
