Member Spotlight – Ekjot Brar

Ekjot Brar is a first year Engineering student at the University of Alberta currently taking part in the AlbertaSat club. Her role in AlbertaSat is assisting in the mechanical team, presently tasked with designing a toolpath for the metallic structure of the satellite, epicly named Icarus. Ekjot has been a part of AlbertaSat for 18 months already; not a common feat being only in her first year of her undergraduate! Ekjot ultimately decided to join this club so early due to having an interest in “exploring the void of [the] undiscovered and finding solutions to complex issues.”

During her time here at AlbertaSat, there is one big thing that Ekjot has learned about building a satellite from the ground up – the design process may not always feel rewarding in the middle of it, considering all the setbacks, but the final result more than makes up for the countless hours put in. Some of Ekjot’s work and favorite memories include participating in the CAN/RGX competition due to being a part of the SpiderSat subteam, where they held weekly work sessions called “Spider Saturdays” and did tons of hands-on work. Besides the hands-on experience, Ekjot also appreciated how fulfilling it was when the final results came out exceptionally successful. Furthermore, Ekjot witnessed the flight campaign of Ex-Alta 2 (AlbertaSat’s previous mission) at the Telus World of Science, which inspired her about the possibilities of AlbertaSat’s current mission, Ex-Alta 3. As you can probably guess, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows (and satellites) at AlbertaSat; things come at a cost, especially the gaps in knowledge that Ekjot encountered, including the challenges of only being a first year. That’s one of the inspirational parts about this whole club, however; Ekjot took part in AlbertaSat with the primary objective of learning, just as hundreds of other students have done.

Her learning will be useful as well; Ekjot plans to be working in the aerospace industry to generate solutions to the growing issue of space pollution and the buildup of deorbited satellites with the CSA.

Outside the club, Ekjot loves instant ramen and how easy it is to make compared to a satellite. Ekjot also volunteers for the Canadian Wildlife Federation as part of the subsection called “Wild Outside” where she works on environmental sustainability and education.