The Space Billboard: Innovation or Pollution of the Earth's skies

SpaceBillboard, a supporter of innovative space research, is set to launch the world's first billboard in space in a milestone that marks the increasing importance of CubeSats in Space Exploration.

Researchers at KU Leuven University in Belgium came up with the novel idea of launching a real billboard into space to help fund their research on a new line up of NexGen satellites called CubeSats.

A CubeSat is small, about the size of a milk carton - and lightweight, which makes them cheaper to build and launch.

A CubeSat is the perfect answer for universities and start-ups to get involved in space research, one of the bedrock platforms for research on advanced technology solutions.

European Space Agency ESA and NASA in the US have active CubeSat programs that help drive the development and adoption of emerging technologies in support of new business solutions.

Tjorven Delabie, co-founder of SpaceBillboard said: "We are talking about an out-of-this-world project, that allows companies to bring their brand into space."

"The idea is catching on, and SpaceBillboard has already secured a number of contracts for companies to have their message on their own billboard in space."

The launch of the billboard is scheduled for the beginning of 2016, to be launched from Alcantara in Brazil.

Highest and fastest
The messages on the SpaceBillboard will be the highest and the fastest ever seen in the industry, flying at 27,400 kph at an altitude of 500 km.

The Billboard will orbit the Earth 15 times a day, becoming the first advertisements that literally bring their message around the world.

Although the billboard will not be visible from Earth, all messages will be continuously visible on the SpaceBillboard website as well as used in the customers' branding campaigns.

Marketing and Science
SpaceBillboard is a new kind of crowdfunding project where private and corporate donors help push space research forward. For companies, buying one or more of the 400 available squares on the billboard is a perfect opportunity to showcase their innovative spirit. At euro 2500 per square for the launch premiere, SpaceBillboard is a fantastic way to bring together experts from academia and industry to support the future of technology.

Personal Messages
Inspiring people about space research is an important part of SpaceBillboard's mission. Therefore, you can also put a personal message on the billboard yourself.

Sending a personal message into space costs euro 1/character. So far, many have already signed up to share their message, most of them are messages of love.

Into Space
Once the SpaceBillboard has been sold out, it will be put on the CubeSat. This satellite will also perform a valuable scientific mission.

The CubeSat will be deployed into a high inclination, low Earth orbit, and is expected to operate in orbit for up to ten years.

After that, the satellite will burn up in the atmosphere, ensuring that no space debris is left behind.

Space debris: Expert warns of increasing CubeSat collision risk

A Clyde-Space CubeSat in the Scottish test lab.

Credit: Clyde-Space

The increasing number of small 'CubeSat' satellites being launched combined with a relaxed attitude to debris mitigation could lead to hazards for all space users unless preventative measures are taken, warns a leading space debris expert from the University of Southampton.

Speaking today at the 65th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) 2014 in Toronto, Dr Hugh Lewis said that this combination leads to a growth in space debris, as a result of collisions between CubeSats and other objects in orbit.

CubeSats are small satellites (around 10x10x10cm) that are providing opportunities for companies to break into the space data and communications industries.

Despite many CubeSats not having any manoeuvring capability so they cannot avoid collisions during the mission or manoeuvre to a disposal orbit at their mission end, they are still perceived to have a low impact on the space debris environment.

However, despite guidelines requiring the satellites to deorbit within 25 years, some are being launched into high Earth orbits, which means their orbital lifetime could be much greater.

More than a third of all CubeSats launched to-date (around 160 between 2003 and 2013) are predicted to remain on-orbit for more than 25 years.

Since 2005, CubeSats have been involved in more than 360,000 close approaches of less than 5 km with other orbiting objects.

Dr Lewis says: "To reduce the risks, some effort is needed to engage with the growing small satellite community."

"All space users, not just those in the CubeSat community, who are taking the right steps should be encouraged to continue and, ultimately, lead on sustainable practices and debris mitigation activities.

"Those who are not yet engaged with this approach should be encouraged to do so. It's probably a matter of changing their perceptions of the risks and helping them to understand that there is a collective responsibility to ensure that outer space activities are sustainable so that future generations have the same opportunities to use space as we do."

Dr Lewis and his team used their Debris Analysis and Monitoring Architecture to the Geosynchronous Environment (DAMAGE) model to simulate three future CubeSat launch traffic scenarios until the year 2043.

By comparing these with close approach data from 2005 to 2013, the team found CubeSats are estimated to be involved in millions of close approaches over the next 30 years, with a handful leading to a collision.

Analysis of the close approaches found that most of the collision risk from CubeSats comes from high-speed encounters with large spacecraft.

In addition, many of these encounters were in Sun-synchronous orbits that are popular with remote sensing and Earth science satellites.

Dr Lewis adds: "By far the greatest risk comes from those with long lifetimes at altitudes of about 750 km. If CubeSats continue to be launched into long-lived orbits without any means of disposing of them, then they will contribute to the growing space debris hazard."

"This is not a responsible or sustainable practice, in my view. However, if efforts are made to limit the lifetimes, as some are already doing, then the risks will be reduced."

NASA's IceCube No Longer On Ice -

This file photo shows examples of three-unit (3U) CubeSats. 

At about a foot in length and four inches wide, these are similar in design to IceCube and the five selected heliophysics CubeSats. 

Image courtesy NASA.

NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD) has chosen a team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, to build its first Earth science-related CubeSat mission.

The tiny payload, known as IceCube or Earth-1, will demonstrate and validate a new 874-gigahertz submillimeter-wave receiver that could help advance scientists' understanding of ice clouds and their role in climate change.

SMD also selected five heliophysics-related missions, two involving Goddard scientists who will serve as co-investigators responsible primarily for data analysis and instrument design.

All will fly on a three-unit or 3U CubeSat, which is comprised of individual units each about four inches on a side. Each satellite will weigh about three pounds.

For the IceCube team, led by Principal Investigator Dong Wu, the news was sweet.

"Needless to say, we were thrilled when we got the news that the directorate had chosen it as its first Earth-1 CubeSat," said Jeff Piepmeier, associate head of Goddard's Microwave Instruments and Technology Branch. "I really think it's an important opportunity."

Qualifying COTS Receiver As the sole Earth science CubeSat mission selected by SMD, IceCube will demonstrate and space-qualify a commercially available 874-gigahertz submillimeter-wave receiver developed by Virginia Diodes Inc. (VDI), of Charlottesville, Virginia, under a NASA Small Business Innovative Research contract.

Ultimately, the team wants to infuse this receiver into an ice-cloud imaging radiometer for NASA's proposed Aerosol-Cloud-Ecosystems (ACE) mission.

IceCube will lead to the development of an instrument capable of providing an accurate daily assessment of the global distribution of atmospheric ice.

Knowing this distribution will help scientists describe the linkage between the hydrologic and energy cycles in the climate system.

Ice clouds ultimately are a product of precipitating cloud systems and dramatically affect Earth's emission of infrared energy into space and its reflection and absorption of the sun's energy.

To this day, the amount of atmospheric ice on a global scale remains highly uncertain.

The key is obtaining measurements over a broader frequency band, from the infrared to submillimeter wavelengths, IceCube team members said.

Submillimeter wavelength coverage fills the data gap in the middle and upper troposphere where ice clouds are often too opaque for infrared and visible sensors to penetrate. Microwave wavelengths are not sensitive to ice.

Although NASA has flown submillimeter receivers in airborne missions, a capability that was non-existent just a decade ago before VDI began advancing its 874-gigahertz receiver, it has not flown them in space.

"What we want to do is modify this receiver to fly in space and raise its technology-readiness level for deployment on a satellite," said Goddard scientist Paul Racette, a member of Goddard's IceCube team. Although the technology itself has proven its mettle in aircraft, challenges remain.

"The receiver technology is very challenging," Racette added.

"The team must make sure the receiver is sensitive enough to detect and measure ice clouds using little power from a very small platform. This project will help us develop the processes required to space-qualify commercial-off-the-shelf components," he said.

IceCube will be managed and co-funded by NASA's Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO), which has an existing stable of CubeSat projects under development and already in-orbit.

IceCube will be the eighth Earth science technology validation effort to use the CubeSat platform.

Planetary Society: LightSail-1 Solar Sail cubesat to Launch by 2016

Nine years after a rocket failure destroyed its solar-sailing spacecraft, the Planetary Society, the nonprofit space advocacy group led by scientist and popular TV host Bill Nye, is ready for another try.

On Wednesday (July 9), the Planetary Society announced launch dates for its LightSail-1 spacecraft, a possible test flight in 2015 (LightSail-A) and a full mission the next year (LightSail-B) with nearly identical hardware.

Both solar sail missions operate under the LightSail-1 designation.

LightSail-B will steer in Earth's orbit using nothing more than radiation from the sun. Made up of three miniature CubeSats, it will launch aboard SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, which has yet to be flown.

The four sails will ride inside the CubeSats until they're ready to be unfurled, several weeks after liftoff.

Prox-1 cubesat developed by Georgia Instutute of Technology.

Credit: GIT

LightSail-B will be boosted to medium-Earth orbit inside another spacecraft called Prox-1, a Georgia Institute of Technology project.

Prox-1 will spit LightSail out and remain nearby to watch the spacecraft unfurl.

LightSail-A, meanwhile, would only reach low-Earth orbit in a mission designed to show how well the craft operates in space.

The sails themselves should be visible to the naked eye from Earth; they cover 344 square feet (32 square meters), Planetary Society representatives said.

LightSail-1 is a successor to the society's Cosmos 1, which failed to reach orbit aboard a Russian Volna rocket in 2005.

It ended up falling into the Barents Sea, an Arctic sea located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia, the very location where it had launched by submarine.

The Planetary Society sees solar sailing as a vast improvement over traditional spacecraft, which require expensive fuel and engines to perform maneuvers in space. Sailcraft instead use solar radiation to increase their speed.

This is a gradual pressure that takes more time to move spacecraft, but Nye said he sees this as a more sustainable way to explore the solar system.

SwRI chosen by NASA to study solar particles and space weather CuSPP

NASA has selected Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) to develop CuSPP, a CubeSat mission to study Solar Particles over the Earth's Poles. SwRI will also lead mission science operations and data analysis.

During the five-year project, engineers and scientists will design, develop and integrate a CubeSat, a nano-satellite launched as a secondary payload on another satellite mission, carrying a novel miniaturized Suprathermal Ion Sensor (SIS) developed at SwRI.

The SIS will measure the sources and acceleration mechanisms of solar energetic particles that are harmful to astronauts as well as Earth-based technologies.

CuSPP can also be used to support space weather research by measuring particles that escape ahead of powerful shock waves in the solar wind.

Upon striking the Earth, solar particles and shock waves can cause severe electromagnetic storms, damage satellites, disrupt radio communication and navigation signals, damage electric power grids and corrode pipelines.

In addition, CuSPP is designed to measure the properties of ion populations entering the ionosphere, the uppermost portion of the Earth's atmosphere.

"Upon successful completion, we expect CuSPP to have achieved several key goals, such as increasing the technological readiness level and reducing the risks and costs of flying a new class of SwRI science instruments for studying heliophysics, the Sun's effects on the solar system," says Dr. Mihir Desai, CuSPP principal investigator and a staff scientist in the SwRI Space Science and Engineering Division.

"We also expect to provide critical measurements that shed light on the origins of hazardous charged particle populations accelerated at the Sun and interplanetary space, as well as play a major role in developing reliable nano-satellites for NASA and other sponsors."

CuSPP will fly as a secondary payload as early as 2017. It will reside in a high-inclination (> 65 degrees) low-Earth orbit, approximately 500 km above Earth, for the duration of its mission.

The primary satellite on which CuSPP will launch will be named at a later date.

The CubeSat concept was developed in 1999 as an academic tool to provide students with an inexpensive way to gain hands-on experience in designing and building satellites.

More recently, they have been used for scientific research, exploration, technology development and operations.

A standard CubeSat is a 10 centimeter cube with a one-liter volume. CuSPP is 30 by 10 by 10 centimeters with a volume of three liters.

NASA has increased the reliability and functionality of CubeSats to extend the use of this miniaturized platform into deep space.

The agency recently implemented a new CubeSat initiative for its Science Mission Directorate (SMD).

SwRI is collaborating with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., to produce the CubeSat, including the flight segment (integrated at SwRI), ground segment (provided by the NASA Wallops Flight Facility) and payload (developed at SwRI).

CuSPP was selected as part of the 2013 Heliophysics-Technology and Instrument Development for Science (H-TIDeS) 2013 competition, with funding from the new NASA SMD-wide CubeSat initiative managed by NASA's Heliophysics Division.

ESA CubeSat Space Tethers need to be Snap-proof

Space tethers hold intriguing potential for satellite manoeuvring, attitude control and even power generation. 

Unfortunately, about half of all orbital tether tests have either failed to deploy or snapped, probably due to micrometeoroid impacts.

ESA is developing on a new snap-proof design for their ongoing Satellite program.

Scanning-electron microscope image of the new design of an ultra-thin  snap-proof solar sail tether.

The tether is soon to be operationally tested on Estonia's ESTCube-1, which is being launched into orbit along with ESA's Proba-V satellite on the next Vega rocket.

Harnessing manufacturing techniques from the microelectronics industry, this aluminium tether measures just 50 micrometres across - across half the diameter of the average human hair - with a smaller 25 micrometre wire interweaved onto it.

The University of Helsinki's interweaving technique, with several wires joined together every centimetre, will hopefully keep the tether intact to run an electric charge down it, even if all but one subwires in the tether are cut.

Designed, built and operated by the students of several Estonian universities and led by the University of Tartu with Tartu Observatory, ESTCube-1 is part of ESA's Plan for Cooperating States (PECS) agreement with Estonia.

PECS is a one-year programme of activity taking place as a prelude to the country joining ESA as a Member State.

The electric solar sail, or 'E-sail' being tested by this CubeSat mission, passes electricity through wires such as these to generate electrostatic forces which in turn generate momentum.

In low orbit, E-sails could be used as brakes to deorbit satellites. Beyond Earth's magnetic field, satellites could one day make use of the solar wind to gain a nearly free ride across the Solar System.

ESTCube-1 will unfurl a 10 m-long single-strand E-sail to show its potential as a compact and economical deorbiting method, measuring the resulting force acting on the E-sail as it comes into contact with space plasma.

A 100 m E-sail tether will fly on Finnish student CubeSat Aalto-1 next year. Artist's impression shown below. The thin E-sail tether line is visible in the picture.

Clyde Space CubeSat: Scotland's 1st Spacecraft Is Tiny Satellite

An artist's illustration of UKube-1, Scotland's first satellite, in orbit. It launches in 2013. 

CREDIT: Clyde Space

cotland's first satellite will soon find a home in orbit around the Earth — a forerunner of things to come under a collaborative, national nanosatellite program in the UK.

Dubbed UKube-1, the small, novel CubeSat spacecraft has been constructed by Clyde Space in Glasgow and is completing final testing for launch later this year onboard a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The advanced UKube-1 nanosatellite has been designed and manufactured by Clyde Space at their high-tech facility at the West of Scotland Science Park.

The petite but powerful spacecraft is chock full of payloads that include the first GPS device aimed at measuring space weather in Earth's plasmasphere — the inner-most layer of the planet's magnetosphere.

The satellite also comes equipped with a camera that will take pictures of the Earth from space and test the effect of radiation on space hardware using a new generation of imaging sensor and an experiment to demonstrate the feasibility of using cosmic radiation to improve the security of communications satellites and to flight test lower cost electronic systems.

The UKube-1 satellite also totes a payload made up of five experiments that UK students and the public can interact with — a true "outreach" program into space.


A recent visitor to take a look at UKube-1 was Alex Salmond, First Minister of Scotland.

"It's one small satellite for Clyde and a giant leap for their extraterrestrial export business and a new hope for space science in Scotland," Salmond said.

UKube-1 is a UK Space Agency mission. The mission has been funded jointly by Clyde Space and a number of funding partners including the UK Space Agency, the Science and Technology Facilities Council, the Technology Strategy Board and Scottish Enterprise.

As well as the platform and payload elements of the mission, UKube-1 is being supported by three UK ground stations.

"We started designing our nanosatellite platform in 2008 as a means to stimulate some funding from the UK government as part of a national CubeSat program," Craig Clark, chief executive officer of Clyde Space said. Nanosatellites are the fasting growing space sub-sector, with the UK able to tap into both heritage and expertise that primes the pump in building future small satellites, Clark added.

Clark said that there are a number of new developments from Clyde Space on the mission including deployable solar panels — there are three on UKube-1 — as well as advanced attitude and control technology, a sophisticated miniature sun sensor and specialized software that other CubeSats can use.

Scotland's Clyde Space: CubeSat-1 readied for launch

Clyde-built nanosatellite set for Russian take-off as company reveals plan for US base.

Alex Salmond took a close-up view of Scotland's first satellite as the Glasgow-based team behind the mission announced plans to open a base in the United States.

Clyde Space, which designed and built the UKube-1 nanosatellite, is running final tests at the company's headquarters in the West of Scotland Science Park ahead of its deployment next month to Kazakhstan, where it will be launched in a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket later this year.

Employing more than 20 highly-skilled full-time staff, Clyde Space is a leading producer of small satellite, nanosatellite and 'CubeSat' systems - fully-functional satellites that 'piggy-back' on other launches to minimise costs and boost the commercial availability of space research.

The company develops and delivers products to commercial aerospace, defence companies and academic teams around the world and now plans to open a base next year in the United States - which already accounts for almost a third of its current orders.

Mr Salmond said: "From James Clerk Maxwell's electromagnetic theory that paved the way for deep-space telescopes, to Professor Higgs work at the University of Edinburgh into the building blocks of all matter, Scottish science has helped humankind better understand our universe.

By pioneering a cost-effective way of supporting more space research, the Clyde Space team is building on a strong heritage of engineering, ingenuity and innovation. I'm delighted that, through Scottish Enterprise, we've been able to support this exciting company as it has built the business globally, to a point, now, where it is planning a new base in the US.

"It is great to see up close Scotland's first space satellite - representing another successful Scottish export drive, but not as we know it. After years of hard work Craig and his stellar team have shown they have the right stuff to achieve a space mission and they're ready to make it so.

I'm delighted that the mission not only supports several research projects but will engage young people online and can help inspire the next generation of space scientists and engineers. We cannot change the laws of physics but it's important that we continue to study and understand them better. It's one small satellite for Clyde and a giant leap for their extraterrestrial export business and a new hope for space science in Scotland!"

Plastic Space Telescopes: Photon sieves make super-cheap viewers

FLEXIBLE plastic telescopes launched from microsatellites could serve as quick replacements for space observatories taken out by solar flares, or spy satellites downed by military action.

The telescopes, which are being developed by Geoff Andersen and colleagues at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, rely on an imaging device called a photon sieve. 

Traditional telescopes use lenses or mirrors to focus light by refraction or reflection, but the photon sieve uses diffraction instead. 

The sieve is an ultra-thin plastic disc perforated by millions of microscopic holes, each of which bends light at different angles to create a focal point.

Less light reaches the focal point compared with traditional lenses or mirrors, making it hard to image dim objects, and the device can only take black-and-white pictures. 

But the sieve is cheap, lightweight and easy to manufacture at large sizes. It can also be tightly folded and unfurled without being damaged. "You can't do that with mirrors or lenses," says Andersen, who hopes to launch a device into orbit in 2014.

The planned 20-centimetre-diameter telescope will be scrunched up inside a CubeSat, a microsatellite just 10 × 10 × 30 cm, designed for cheaply carrying small payloads. 

Andersen's team aims to take pictures of the sun to prove that the concept works. A similar device could also help the search for Earth-like planets, Andersen says, though such images would require a big telescope, and would likely be just a few pixels wide.

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is also interested in using the concept to build a 20-metre version of the photon sieve for imaging objects on the ground at sub-metre resolutions.

Andersen says the design is partly a response to China's demonstration in 2007 of an anti-satellite missile. "That showed a billion-dollar national asset could be shot down at any time," he says.

He will present the research at the Defense, Security and Sensing conference in Baltimore, Maryland, next month.

Marek Kukula of the Royal Observatory Greenwich in London says that while the devices won't replace the likes of the Hubble or James Webb space telescopes, a "cheap and cheerful" alternative to smaller telescopes would have many applications.

First Scottish-built satellite UKube-1 to launch in 2013

One of the first satellite to be built in Scotland, by Clyde Space, is due to be launched next year.

UKube-1 is being built at the West of Scotland Science Park in Maryhill, Glasgow.

The United Kingdom Universal Bus Experiment, to give it its proper name, is a pilot programme from the UK Space Agency to test new technologies in space.

The underlying CubeSat concept came originally from America: to create a satellite 10cm by 10cm by 10cm.

That gives you a volume of just one litre, but that can contain a surprising amount of science in low Earth orbit.

It's a package which costs, by space exploration standards, relatively little to build and launch.

Several Scottish firms supply intellectual property to the space industry. One of them, Clyde Space, has a big presence in the CubeSat sector.

More than 600 CubeSats have been launched so far and the Glasgow firm has made components for 40% of them.

They have customers worldwide and - if your credit card can take the strain - you can order the innards of your very own satellite from their online CubeSat shop.

'Different possibilities'

They make components for other types of satellites too but their chief executive, Craig Clark, says he's seen the CubeSat concept expand far beyond its initial concept.

People often ask me what my job is and I tell them that I'm building satellites in Maryhill. Sometimes they laugh at me” Steven Kirk Clyde Space.

"A typical CubeSat mission was a student-built satellite that would maybe go beep or try something out that didn't cost a lot of money," he says.

"But now it's serving a need, maybe for more communications or images from space. If you can think of an application, there's a way of fitting it in a CubeSat. It really opens the mind to lots of different possibilities."

Those possibilities include CubeSats which aren't cubes: the basic modules can be stacked to produce double or triple decker designs.

UKube-1 is a three-cube platform. Three litres of orbital science overseen by the UK Space Agency.

It will be the first complete satellite to be assembled by Clyde Space.

Project manager Gillian Smith's job is to co-ordinate the company's own contributions to the satellite: power systems, solar panels and other hardware."But we're also managing the payload teams," she says.

"We've got four different payloads from different universities and organisations which will be on UKube-1."

Scotland's Glasgow firm Clyde Space awarded small share of UK technology funding

Glasgow-based Clyde Space has been awarded funding for two joint space technology development projects.

The firm has secured nearly £70,000 under the UK Space Agency's National Space Technology Programme (NSTP).

The funding will help Clyde further work on miniaturised electric propulsion systems for very small spacecraft.

The other project involves developing attitude planning and control algorithms for low cost spacecraft.

Clyde has been working on tiny electric propulsion systems for very small spacecraft called "CubeSats" and nanosatellites with Southampton University's Mars Space Ltd.

Funding of £24,000 has been awarded for their joint work on a micro pulsed plasma thruster for CubeSats.

Clyde said the project would take the technology forward to a flight-ready prototype.

The UK Space Agency awarded a further £44,000 for a joint project with the Advanced Space Concepts Laboratory at the University of Strathclyde.

That project involves optimising algorithms for control of CubeSat attitude, furthering work already completed at Clyde.

Craig Clark, from Clyde Space, said: "We are up against organisations from all over the world, high technology companies that are doing similar things to us, so this funding will really help towards us maintaining a competitive edge."

ESA VEGA: Central and eastern Europe make history with small satellites

University of Bucharest’s Goliat being integrated into the first P-POD.

Credits: ESA / A. Reyes

The first satellites entirely designed and built by Hungary, Poland, Romania are now orbiting Earth after today’s successful maiden flight of ESA's small Vega launcher.

The latest addition to Europe’s versatile family of space launchers, Vega carried nine satellites, seven of them built by European universities.

This group of ESA-sponsored educational CubeSats included Goliat from Romania, PW-Sat from Poland and Masat-1 from Hungary.

The unique opportunity to launch the first satellites from these countries was made possible by a fruitful collaboration between the ESA launcher and education programmes.

“Since Vega’s first mission was a qualification flight, ESA decided to offer the chance to European Universities of a free ride into space for small scientific or educational payloads,” noted Antonio Fabrizi, ESA’s Director of Launchers.  
 

European Space Agency (ESA): VEGA Build and launch - Live streaming video

eurospaceagency on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

ESA’s CubeSats near the end of a five year journey

Xatcobeo, the CubeSat from University of Vigo and INTA, shown here prior to it's launch.

Credits: Universidade de Vigo / INTA

26 January 2012
The excitement is mounting, not only at the launch site in Kourou, French Guiana, but also in universities across Europe, as ESA's Vega launch vehicle is prepared for its maiden flight.

Among the payloads on board Europe's latest rocket are seven student-built CubeSats sponsored by ESA.

The story of the ESA CubeSats – dubbed the 'ESA Cubs' - began in May 2007, when the Agency decided to include an educational payload, including up to six CubeSats, on the first flight of Vega.

This was followed in January 2008 by the first dedicated CubeSat workshop to be held at European level.

"We didn’t know what to expect, since CubeSat missions were only just starting to become popular amongst universities at that time," said Roger Walker, the Head of Education Projects at the ESA Education Office.

"The level of interest was amazing, with more than 120 people attending the workshop. We were also surprised by the diversity of the projects that were put forward, demonstrating the high creativity of the CubeSats community.

In the end we selected 24 student teams to present their ideas during the workshop at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), in the Netherlands."

Read more here at ESA website

ESA Vega rocket ready for first flight

Vega's maiden flight, VV01, is planned for the beginning of 2012 from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

ESA’s new, small launcher will carry nine satellites into orbit on its very first flight: Italian space agency’s LARES and ALMASat-1 with seven CubeSats from European universities.

Credits: ESA - J. Huart, 2012

All four stages have undergone final acceptance, including the testing of the avionics, guidance, telemetry, propulsion, separation pyrotechnics and safety systems.

These steps culminated on 13 January with Vega’s ‘synthesis control checks’, where all systems were put into launch mode for the vehicle’s final acceptance. This included pressurising the AVUM propulsion systems that actuate the thruster valves.


The rocket’s elements were switched on from the control bench to simulate the launch countdown. The onboard software then took over and simulated the different stages of a flight. The interfaces between the vehicle and the control bench were also tested.

The test review confirmed that everything ran as expected and that the launcher is ready for flight.

ESA Reveals JAXA's Small Demonstration Satellite-4 (SDS-4)

On Jan. 10, the Small Demonstration Satellite-4 (SDS-4) was shown to the media at the Tsukuba Space Centre.

The SDS-4 is a tiny 50-cm cubic satellite, and it will be launched as a piggyback payload with the Global Change Observation Mission 1st- Water "SHIZUKU"in Japan Fiscal Year 2012.

Background
 JAXA has been promoting the Small Demonstration Satellite (SDS) program in order to verify new technologies for components and devices in space prior to providing highly established technology to practical satellites and scientific probes.

An SDS can be developed in a shorter period of time with lower costs compared to a large-size satellite, thus it has an advantage to carry out on-orbit verification and experiments in a timely manner.

In addition, we can also foster younger employees by offering them opportunities to experience an overall series of work from a design phase thru satellite operation in space.

The first SDS (SDS-1), which was about 100 kgs, was launched on January 23, 2009. The SDS-4 project aims to develop a 50-kg class satellite, which is a standard size for a companion payload on the H-IIA Launch Vehicle, and the satellite is scheduled to be launched with the SHIZUKU (Global Change Observation Mission 1st – Water, GCOM-W1) as a piggyback payload.

ESA Cubesats delivered for first Vega flight

The Spanish CubeSat - Credits: ESA / A. Reyes

The first CubeSats to be sponsored by ESA’s Education Office have been delivered to the agency’s Space Technology and Research Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands.

Integration of these 1 kilogram pico-satellites into their deployment systems, named P-PODs (Poly-Picosatellite Orbital Deployer) and the associated testing was completed by mid-November.

They will now undergo a Final Acceptance Review and, if accepted for the flight, will be sent to the European Spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana, to be prepared for launch on the Vega Qualification Flight.

The ESA CubeSat programme began on 28 May 2007, when Antonio Fabrizi, the Director of Launchers, and René Oosterlinck, the Director of Legal Affairs and External Relations, signed an agreement to include an educational payload on the maiden flight of the Vega launch vehicle.

The announcement of opportunity issued by ESA's Education Office in February 2008 offered the possibility of launching up to nine university CubeSats free-of-charge on Europe's newest launcher. 

NASA NPP Satellite Launch video - YouTube

At the public viewing site we had a terrific view of SLC-2, the launchpad where NPP sat on it’s Delta II rocket, 3 miles away. As promised, the sky was clear, the Milky Way visible in the sky, and not even a hint of fog.

Early arrivals were entertained by the Air Force guys who had set up streaming video of NASA TV projected onto the side of a white truck. There was music, swag give-aways for the people who could name NPP’s five instruments, and more details on the CubeSats from the university teams that built them. Someone from the crowd shouted, “Give us more physics!”

The buzz through the crowd transmitted the various launch countdown updates as wireless was intermittent but at T-30 seconds the whole crowd of at least a hundred grew silent.

Camera phones went up, the true photographers got ready. Before the countdown no one spoke. T-10 seconds.

Then the rocket lit up!

A bright light in the darkness that slowly rose as gasps and cheers rose from the crowd. It was incredible to watch.

Poland Delivers its First Cube Sat to ESA, ESTEC

PW-Sat was selected by the European Space Agency to be launched aboard the new European small-size rocket (Vega) together with eight other small CubeSats.

PW-Sat, a student Cubesat project and the first Polish satellite, has just been delivered to ESTEC in the Netherlands. This is an important step towards the launch of this mission.

PW-Sat is a small-satellite project led by the Warsaw University of Technology (Politechnika Warszawska - PW in short). The project was initiated in 2005 and since the beginning it was designed and developed as a 1U CubeSat (one unit - one litre of volume). The main purpose of PW-Sat is to demonstrate a speed-up of the deorbitation process and to familiarize students with a real satellite project.

Throughout the years, the design of PW-Sat changed several times - for example a sail-type experiment was tested. After some changes in design, a tail-like (length - 200 cm) structure was chosen, which will be tested once PW-Sat reaches orbit.

PW-Sat was selected by the European Space Agency to be launched aboard the new European small-size rocket (Vega) together with eight other small CubeSats. After some delays, it is probable that Vega rocket will launch for the first time in January 2012. PW-Sat will be launched on this maiden flight.

To secure the place on the first Vega rocket, the flight model of PW-Sat had to be assembled in the first week of October 2011. Later a short set of tests (vibrations, functional tests and vacuum-thermal checks) were done, after which the satellite was sent to ESTEC in Netherlands.

On the 18th of October 2011, the PW-Sat ha sreached ESTEC as the first delivered Cubesat, where it will undergo a series of additional tests.

This small student's CubeSat is going to be first Polish satellite, fully designed and assembled in Poland. Although Polish universities and science institutes have a long tradition in space missions, as demonstrated in several different and ambitious instruments, still a full satellite was never built in Poland.

Just few months later, the first Polish scientific satellite - BRITE-PL "Lem" - will be launched, probably on board a Dnepr rocket.

If no further delays occur and Vega launches on time, there will be a big success for Polish students to celebrate. Not only will they be the constructors of Poland's first satellite.

They will also win a kind of small "first satellite race" with the BRITE-PL "Lem", which is being built and supported fully by governmental scientific institutions."

Cube Satellites: View Space Station as Launch Pad

CubeSats are small and compact sensor-laden satellites that can help monitor phenomena of interest, such as Earth's upper atmosphere.

CREDIT: University of Kentucky

The International Space Station would be an ideal launch platform for dispatching tiny spacecraft to perform a variety of Earth-oriented scientific research tasks, some experts speculate.

The idea of using the $100 billion ISS as a platform to pop out sensor-laden probes has captured the attention of small-satellite makers, who are contemplating deploying palm-sized satellites called CubeSats from the orbiting laboratory to study phenomena of interest.

Clyde Space - Cubesat

Scottish scientists are also at the Technology Strategy Board Collaboration Nation event, concluding the Space Feasibility study activities, Clyde Space presented three of our innovative technology concepts for use on CubeSats. 

The concepts were a high resolution imager for a 3U CubeSat for global digital mapping, a Bush Fire early warning system using a constellation of 3U CubeSats with infrared imaging capability and a Dragsail for automatically deorbiting CubeSats at the end of mission life. 

A summary of the studies can be found in this PDF (extract from the Technology Strategy Board report): Clyde Space TSB Study Summaries.