Because of their low costs and high scientific return, many universities are starting CubeSat projects. Paris Diderot University has created a Student Space Center in 2012 to support its nano-satellite educational activities.

IGOSat (Ionospheric & Gamma-ray Observations SATellite) is the first CubeSat project of the Paris Diderot University, and has 2 payloads in a quasi-polar orbit at 650km altitude:

  • A dual-frequency GPS receiver to study the Total Electronic Content (TEC) of the Ionosphere by GPS occultation, measuring the phase shift of L1 and L2 signals.
  • A scintillator and SiPM (silicon photomultiplier) for detecting gamma rays and electrons above the poles and the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA), using the example of XGRE / TARANIS (currently developed at the APC) .

With the support of CNES in the JANUS program (French educational satellite project), the APC (AstroParticle & Cosmology Laboratory) and the IPGP (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris), IGOSat has already trained more than  200 students from Ile de France and elsewhere.

 

A CubeSat is a nano satellite standard, mainly constraining the size of the system (1 Unit = 10x10x10 cm) and its mass (1.33kg per Unit). Created in 1999 by CalPoly University and Stanford in California, it enables to design, manufacture and operate low-cost satellites.

Thus, more than 300 CubeSats have been in orbit since 2003 (figure 2015).

A CubeSat can consist of one or more units (up to 6U currently, with IGOSat being the most common 3U CubeSat). Many start-ups now offer
Subsystems called “on-shelf”, which drastically reduce development costs.

Liens utiles :

NanoRacksCubeSatLaunch_ISS038-E-056389Déploiement de CubeSat depuis la Station spatiale internationale.

Contenu soumis à la licence CC-BY-SA. Source : Article CubeSat de Wikipédia en français (auteurs)