We have been accepted to do a poster and optional paper at the SmallSat Conference 2025. A few weeks prior a preliminary roster of attendees from UTAT SS has been compiled, and expectations about financial compensations laid out.
Presently, the scope of the conference paper and the execution timeline leading up to the June 10, 2025 paper submission deadline has been laid out. The deadline for the poster is in early August 2025.
Scope of Conference Paper: Topics Covered
Strategy: Since we only have 1 month between end of exams and the paper deadline, we have to be strategic with our efforts. While the exact configuration and design constraints of the FINCH satellite are still in limbo, I suggest focusing on “making something reasonable” that closely resembles what our vision for the satellite payload is. This means granting leniency to mass and volume constraints (within reasonable limits) and not engaging in detailed design tedium. Our goal should be to paint a comprehensive portrait of FINCH EYE, capturing all salient design aspects conceptually and demonstrating design viability through software simulation results.
Paper Outline: The proposed outline for the paper could look like this. Numbered items represent individual sections in the paper, while bullet points state the topic to subsections or paragraphs within the section.
Format: We should target 3-4 pages of text, two column 12-pt Times New Roman Single Space 1” margins, without figures and references. We may also prepare a PowerPoint presentation with this information laid out for future design reviews.
The following timeline is proposed by I.S. from Optics.
| Pre May 10th | I.S. contact NAVITAR & OPTEC for ZEMAX BlackBox files. Contact Hyperion on availability of SWIR objectives. Read optical design book + practice telescope design independently. |
|---|---|
| May 10 | Sync meeting between Optics & Pay-mech members contributing to paper. |
| Due by May 14th | I.S. develops basic optical model and prepares mechanical sketches |
| May 14 | Brainstorming meeting: I.S. hands off sketches to Pay-Mech, we discuss optomechanics, answer questions, set expectations |
| May 21 | I.S. close-to-finish with tolerance analysis, update Pay-Mech with findings. |
| May 24 | Design freeze for Optics: complete design, optimization, tolerancing, simulation results. |
| May 31 | Pay-Mech shows design + analysis to optics. Resolve loose ends. |
| June 5 | Design Freeze for Pay-Mech |
| June 7 | Text & figures from optics & pay-mech, close-to-finished. Review text, suggest revisions. |
| June 9 | Add references, formatting, submit paper. |
| June 10 | (If we manage to do this) champagne & whiskey |