Design and manufacture of a nanosatellite for space technology education and potential application

Space is the next frontier for mankind and utilization of space is human's ultimate quest. Although we have been in the Space Age for more than half a century, the cost associated with developing a space system is still very high. First proposed by California Polytechnic State University(1) almost 10 years ago, the idea of cubesat has caught the attention of many organizations around the world because of low development cost and short project schedule. Inspired by the idea, FSpace laboratory of FPT Software JSC and FPT University have joined force in a project to design and manufacture a nanosatellite measuring 10x10x22cm, weighing 2kg (2U cubesat) to give students and young engineers a chance to study about space technology and its application. Since the beginning, our young team members also have been learning and self-training on various topics of aerospace engineering. Out of these we found that building simple antenna to receive signals from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, notably the APT signal from NOAA satellites, is not as hard as we previously thought. This activity also turned out to be of great educational value when it is introduced to young people as they can repeat the experiment themselves using inexpensive equipments and get useful data from space. The nanosatellite (called F-l) itself is an Earth observation satellite and qualification platform as we hope to demonstrate the use of many Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) components to reduce development schedule and cost. It carries 02 low-resolution cameras (0.3Mp), a high-resolution camera (l.OMp) and various sensors including temperature, magnetic and current sensors to take photos of the Earth and study space environment. To ensure reliability, critical subsystems such as the power supply unit, onboard computer and communication are double or even triple-redundant. With a schedule of only 18 months (from Jan 1, 2009 to June 31, 2010) and an estimated development cost of less than 100,000EUR (launching cost is not included since it depends on the launch provider), the project will help to foster the idea of cubesat and demonstrating the potential application using small satellites. This paper will describe our experience in developing a simple ground receiving station and the basic design of F-l nanosatellite.