While I can’t afford to send a cubesat into orbit, I can (sort of) simulate space in my garage! I picked up a vacuum chamber from Ax-Man Surplus and got ahold of a free vacuum pump from a friend’s company discard pile. I can only get it to go down to about 1/20th of an atmosphere, but perhaps I can improve the performance in the future.
After re-printing the Mysat kit with Prusa’s space-grade filament, I tried it out in the vacuum chamber. I also tried heating and cooling the cubesat as much as I was able to at home. So far everything survived!
Saveitforparts 