The integration of FINCH - UTAT’s CubeSat Mission, set to launch in 2025 - requires an ISO 7 Cleanroom environment (FINCH-LabSpace-CleanBench) in order to ensure the safety of all components onboard. After multiple options were considered, the cheapest, safest and easiest option to satisfy this requirement and provide the team with a suitable working environment for sensitive components is a “Clean-table”, or “clean bench”.

A main aspect of a clean bench is that it ventilates and filters particles from the air enclosed within it. This air flow removes as many particles as possible from the cleanroom space to the outside to maintain air purity (See table below). These are to be monitored regularly to ensure the environment remains in specification for our cleanroom standard.

A clean room is an entire room-sized enclosure in which the air is held at a high purity for dust (particle) count, humidity, and temperature. A clean bench / clean table has a smaller footprint, basically like a regular office table in the area and about 1.5-2 meters in height. Clean benches / clean tables are sized similar to fume hoods used ubiquitously in chemistry labs.

Why a clean-table?

After a long process of trying to get a cleanroom installed inside our lab in Myhal, the project was denied due to fire safety concerns from the faculty. In the search for other solutions, the “clean-table” came out to be the best option. This solution is not only approved and recommended by University of Toronto’s Fire Department and Myhal Property Management, but it is also cheaper than our first option. We had also considered renting out cleanrooms from commercial places, but found the rental prices to be way too high and unfeasible for us. Another option explored was to “borrow” or share the cleanroom of a UofT lab for our project. However, we quickly realized that this option was unviable as no professors were found to allow us to do such thing.

As we approach the critical phase of assembly, integration, and testing of our satellite, establishing a cleanroom environment becomes imperative. This clean-bench will impact many students encompassing those working in the ADCS, Optics, Firmware, Electrical, Power, Mechanical, Thermal, Systems, Operations, and many other subsystems, allowing them to gain hands-on experience handling components that will be a part of a spacecraft sent to space. Moreover, as UTAT is getting more experienced in the design of spacecrafts, we can only imagine that the team will strive for the launch of more complex spacecrafts in the future - undoubtedly needing a cleanroom environment for the handling of space-grade components.

Based on many alternatives explored, this option is the best one for several reasons:

1. It was recommended and approved Myhal Management
2. The cleanroom level achieved by these unit is often of ISO class 5; way beyond our needs - ensuring the safety of sensitive components and keeping doors open for future projects
3. The working area inside the clean-bench we are aiming to get is large enough to support comfortably the needed space for the FINCH mission, while also keeping doors open for future projects
4. The cost of clean-benches is the cheapest and safest alternative for handling extremely costly and sensitive components (such as the ADCS module)

Alternatives and Recommendation