Magnetic fields on earth are not uniform and include many stray DC and AC magnetic fields, which create challenges for reliably and accurately testing satellite attitude control systems that utilize these uniform magnetic fields for attitude control. The product that we are constructing is a Helmholtz chamber, which will have the ability to cancel these stray magnetic fields that will adversely affect testing the attitude control of the satellite. Also, there is a desire to model what a satellite will encounter and how its attitude control will react when traveling over earth's magnetic poles, which we plan to simulate using this Helmholtz chamber.
The Center for Environmental Technology (CET) and Colorado Space Grant Consortium (CSGC) are designing a satellite (PolarCube), which will be using the uniform magnetic fields for attitude control. They have a desire to test out the onboard satellite attitude control before launching it into orbit, which is the driving reason for the Helmholtz chamber project.