This website stores cookies on your computer. These cookies are used to collect information about how you interact with our website and allow us to remember your browser. We use this information to improve and customize your browsing experience, for analytics and metrics about our visitors both on this website and other media, and for marketing purposes. By using this website, you accept and agree to be bound by UVic’s Terms of Use for web and social media privacy.  If you do not agree to the above, you can configure your browser’s setting to “do not track.”

Skip to main content
People Departments Maps Buildings Rooms A-Z
University
of Victoria
Apply Library
Sign in Online tools Sign out
Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science

Voices from Above: Amplifying Indigenous culture from orbit

Closeup of a CubeSat satellite
Close-up image of MARMOTSat, the CfAR satellite currently in orbit.

The University of Victoria's Centre for Aerospace Research (CfAR) has been named a recipient of a Canadian Space Agency (CSA) grant to develop Voices from Above, a new CubeSat mission that will carry Indigenous languages, greetings and cultural imagery into orbit and broadcast them back to Earth.

Once in orbit, the satellite is intended to transmit land acknowledgements, greetings in Indigenous languages and culturally significant artwork and imagery. Anyone with a handheld amateur radio receiver and antenna will be able to receive the messages.

Funded by the Canadian Space Agency and guided by Indigenous partnership

The project is funded by the Canada Space Agency’s Flights and Fieldwork for the Advancement of Science and Technology (FAST) grant program, and delivered with assistance from partners, including Science Venture, and the UVic chapter of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES), building on relationships these groups already hold with the university and in Indigenous communities.

The project is led by CfAR director and professor of mechanical engineering Afzal Suleman, with the support of Jessica Vandenberghe, assistant dean community and culture in the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science, Levi Smith, assistant professor in the electrical and computer engineering department, and Peter Driessen, professor in the electrical and computer engineering department.

For the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science, the project connects directly to the university's Indigenous Plan, Xʷkʷənəŋistəl | W̱ ȻENEṈISTEL | Helping to move each other forward. The plan calls on the university to increase the visibility and use of local languages, place names and art in communications, and to expand Indigenous language programming at every level.

"Voices from Above is a natural extension of our space engineering program at CfAR, but pointed in a different direction”, says Suleman. “Where the ORCASat, MARMOTSat and PolarLink CubeSats challenged our scientific and engineering capabilities, this mission pushes us to think about what a satellite can offer from a cultural and societal perspective."

Hands-on space engineering for UVic students

The satellite, which starts development in September 2026, will build on the experience that CfAR acquired as part of its ORCASat and MARMOTSat missions, continuing to give students at every level hands-on experience with a real space mission. On the technical side, the team plans to develop an open-source command-and-control radio module, designed so other Canadian CubeSat teams can use it in future mission. 

Further details on mission design, content and timeline will follow as the project develops.