Kevin Burville

About me

I am a graduate of the School of Mechatronic Systems Engineering at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada. My passions are for aerospace, robotics, brain-machine interfaces, and fast, clean transportation. I work full-time as a satellite systems engineer at MDA Montreal. I am also working part-time for my start-up Caidin Biotechnologies. In my free time, I am advising ALEASAT, a joint SFU SAT and UBC Orbit CubeSat project launching in 2023.

Before Caidin, I co-founded another company that developed a novel Hall Effect Thruster for small satellites. Although I now serve as an advisor for ALEASAT I was previously working as the project manager of the satellite for 2 years and took it from early concept to assembly, integration, and test (AIT). Previously, I was working on attitude determination and control systems for 2 CubeSats from 2017 to 2020. The first was a 3U CubeSat for the Canadian Satellite Design Challenge 5 with an earth imaging payload. The second was a 3U CubeSat for radio telescope calibration for the Canadian Satellite Design Challenge 4. I also helped start the development and worked on several systems of a 2U CubeSat called ORCASAT which was funded by the Canadian Space Agency for a launch in 2022 as part of the Canadian CubeSat Project. Additionally, I founded SFU Rocketry and served as the President and lead systems engineer for around 2 years. Before this, as a founding member of rLoop Inc, I participated in the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod competition from 2015-2017 and worked on the design of a fully electric vehicle for the Formula SAE Electric Competition in 2017 & early 2018. More on these and other projects can be found below.

Experience

MDA Corporation - Satellite Systems Engineer (CHORUS and GLOBALSTAR Constellations)

Jan 2021 - Present

I am currently working as a Satellite Systems Engineer on the CHORUS and Globalstar Constellations. For CHORUS I am performing systems engineering tasks for the payload, platform, and propulsion system. My time is primarily split between payload system design and technical management of the propulsion system subcontractor and the associated interfaces to the platform. For the Globalstar constellation, I am the primary technical interface between MDA as satellite prime/payload developer and the platform/bus subcontractor Rocket Lab. I help to run meetings/reviews with Rocket Lab, manage platform-level technical specifications, and perform satellite-level analysis.

Tasks of the role include requirement management and verification, technical budget development, systems analysis, interface control documentation, subcontractor technical management, meeting coordination, technical documentation, design review presentation, and more.

Caidin Biotechnologies Inc - Co-Founder & CTO

Oct 2019 - Present

Garrow Space Systems Inc - Co-Founder & CEO

Oct 2019 - May 2022

I founded Garrow Space Systems to develop low-cost propulsion and control systems for small satellites. With my capstone team (senior design) I worked on the development of a Hall-effect thruster for CubeSats and other small satellites. Our team previously received a $116,000 grant from the Canadian Space Agency for the development of our thruster.

SFU Satellite Design Team  - Advisor (Previously Project Manager)

September 2017 - Present

I am currently serving as an advisor for ALEASAT. Before this, I was the project manager of the ALEASAT project for over 2 years. ALEASAT is a joint CubeSat project with SFU SAT and UBC Orbit. As the project manager, I was overseeing various aspects of the project including systems engineering, launch procurement, and licensing. I first joined the SFU Satellite Design Team in September of 2017 when the club was in the early stage of designing and building a 3U CubeSat to compete in the "Canadian Satellite Design Challenge." I joined the ADCS (Attitude Determination & Control Systems) sub-team and later became a co-lead of the team for the next iteration of the competition. Our sub-team worked to design and construct an active control system using magnetorquers and reaction wheels. Our custom reaction wheel is now serving as one of the payloads for ALEASAT.

The team has also joined with the teams at the University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia to work on the "Canadian CubeSat Project." Our proposal was accepted, and we received a $200,000 grant from the Canadian Space Agency and a guaranteed launch of ORCASAT in 2022.

Website: www.sfusat.org

SFU Rocketry - Founder, Advisor (Previously President)

March 2018 - December 2021

I founded SFU Rocketry in March 2018 and was elected as the club’s president. After serving as president for nearly 2 years I stepped down. As the president I organized and ran general meetings, assigned tasks to other leads, and coordinated with competition organizers. Most of the additional administrative work was handled by our admin team and I focused on overseeing and guiding the design of the rocket. I managed the overall systems engineering of both of our 2 rockets in development at the time, but my primary contributions were to the avionics and propulsion systems. As part of this, I participated in a rocketry safety training session with instructors from NASA, Purdue, CSU, Boeing, and Pratt & Whitney. The session was over 12 hours and detailed safe design, operating procedures, team training, as well as propellant, cryogenics, chemical, electrical, and pyrotechnics safety. I also completed an additional 12 hours of NASA LOX (liquid oxygen) training.

Website: www.sfurocketry.com

SFU Aerospace - Co-founder & Technical ADVISER

January 2019 - January 2020

I helped to co-found SFU Aerospace at the beginning of 2019 with the goal of “creating multidisciplinary space.” It is meant to build a bridge between entrepreneurship, business, technology, and education. We hope to encourage and help the development of students in the aerospace industry in both technical and non-technical areas. SFU Aerospace, SFU Rocketry, Team Guardian (UAVs), SFU Satellite Design Team, and SFU Astro Robotics all operate semi-independently but are working together to help provide the best experience for students interested in the aerospace industry. This team is the administrative and entrepreneurship backbone of these teams. Our ultimate goal is to foster long-term aerospace projects that can one day go on to become independent businesses.

We are currently performing educational outreach at STEM events which you can read more about at the bottom of this page. I also helped to develop a curriculum for a 4-day robotics workshop called ‘Decode’ a workshop for elementary school students to teach them Python and basic mechanical design. Although I occasionally still assist the SFU Aerospace team, I am no longer actively taking part in the management and event coordination.

Website: www.sfuaerospace.org

rLOOP INCORPORATED - Founding Member, SM Lead, & engineering TEAM member

June 2015 - August 2017

rLoop is a non-profit, open-source, crowd-sourced think tank. The group was formed in June 2015 to compete in the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition. I was one of the founding members of the team and helped with its initial inception and growth. At rLoop I helped manage the various social media channels and worked on the design and programming of our Hyperloop pod. In 2016 rLoop members attended a design weekend for the competition where rLoop won an award for "Best Non-University Team at the Design Weekend." In January 2017 I attended the Hyperloop Competition 1, with many other rLoop members. At the competition, we were presented with an "Innovation Award" for our pod. 

Website: www.rloop.org

I joined SFU's Formula SAE Electric Team, known as "Team Phantom" in September of 2017. The team was relatively new and mostly doing research. I worked with the mechanical sub-team and did research on braking and suspension systems. The following semester I moved on to working on the cockpit and driver safety. I helped to design the cockpit’s shape, firewall, and closeouts. I also worked on the vehicle’s impact attenuator.

Website: www.teamphantom.ca

Outreach

After founding SFU Rocketry I co-founded SFU Aerospace which is working to bridge the gap between entrepreneurship, technology, and education in the aerospace field. The team is continuing and expanding the educational outreach that aerospace design teams at SFU have been conducting. In addition to helping to organize STEM educational outreach events for people of all ages, I attended many in my time at SFU Aerospace.