Design and Development of a Small Satellite Ground Station

This thesis presents the design and implementation of a Small Satellite Ground Station, developed at the University of Padua to support the Alba Cubesat mission. The work addresses both hardware and software aspects of the system: the selection and integration of antennas, rotor, Software Defined Radio (SDR), and low-noise amplifiers, as well as the development of the control software for satellite tracking, communication, and data handling. The study includes a preliminary site selection analysis, link and data budget calculations, and structural evaluations for the ground station support system. The results demonstrate that the proposed design satisfies the mission requirements while ensuring cost-effectiveness and scalability for future upgrades.