CubETH is a
Swiss
Swiss may refer to:
* the adjectival form of Switzerland
* Swiss people
Places
* Swiss, Missouri
*Swiss, North Carolina
* Swiss, West Virginia
* Swiss, Wisconsin
Other uses
* Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports
*Swiss Internati ...
satellite
A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...
project. As of 2015, it is being developed by several Swiss academic and industrial partners. The
spacecraft
A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to spaceflight, fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including Telecommunications, communications, Earth observation satellite, Earth ...
is a single unit
CubeSat
A CubeSat is a class of miniaturized satellite based around a form factor consisting of cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than per unit, and often use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components for their electronics and structure. CubeSat ...
and therefore 10 x 10 x 10 cm (3.9 x 3.9 x 3.9 in) in size. Its main goal is to prove the feasibility of attitude and
orbit determination with
low cost commercial off-the-shelf
Commercial off-the-shelf or commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) products are packaged or canned (ready-made) hardware or software, which are adapted aftermarket to the needs of the purchasing organization, rather than the commissioning of ...
GNSS
A satellite navigation or satnav system is a system that uses satellites to provide autonomous geo-spatial positioning. It allows satellite navigation devices to determine their location (longitude, latitude, and altitude/elevation) to high p ...
-receivers.
Aims
CubETH is a technology demonstration mission. The first goal is to prove that low cost receivers can be used for positioning in space. The orbit as well as the attitude of the spacecraft will be computed on board the satellite and send to a station on earth. The post-processing of the data will allow a first plausibility check. In order to fulfil an external validation, CubETH will be equipped with
satellite laser ranging
In satellite laser ranging (SLR) a global network of observation stations measures the round trip time of flight of ultrashort pulses of light to satellites equipped with retroreflectors. This provides instantaneous range measurements of milli ...
reflectors for range measurements from ground stations.
Satellite structure
The upper face of the satellite will be equipped with four GNSS antennas. The four side faces hold the
solar panel
A solar cell panel, solar electric panel, photo-voltaic (PV) module, PV panel or solar panel is an assembly of photovoltaic solar cells mounted in a (usually rectangular) frame, and a neatly organised collection of PV panels is called a pho ...
s for electricity generation. A fifth GNSS antenna is mounted on one of the lateral faces. The communication antenna is located on the lower, earth looking face. The whole flight electronics is located inside the satellite. In addition to the five GNSS antennas and the SLR-reflectors, The payload consists of the GNSS receivers and the necessary hardware. The GNSS receiver chips are developed and manufactured by the Swiss company U-blox. The main advantage of these commercial chip-sets is the low power consumption and the small size. However, the chips are not certified for space applications and a
risk assessment
Broadly speaking, a risk assessment is the combined effort of:
# identifying and analyzing potential (future) events that may negatively impact individuals, assets, and/or the environment (i.e. hazard analysis); and
# making judgments "on the ...
is part of the project. For redundancy reasons, the satellite is equipped with ten receivers, each antenna being connected to two of them.
Project partners
The Geodesy and Geodynamics Lab of
ETH Zurich
(colloquially)
, former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule
, image = ETHZ.JPG
, image_size =
, established =
, type = Public
, budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021)
, rector = Günther Dissertori
, president = Joël Mesot
, a ...
holds the scientific leadership and is responsible for the payload data processing software.
EPFL and the Swiss Space Center (SSC) are in charge of project management and the realization of the satellite bus.
Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts develops the payload hardware and the ground station.
RF and antenna-design is provided by
Hochschule für Technik Rapperswil. Further project partners are
HES-SO (academic partner), u-blox (industrial partner),
RUAG Space
Beyond Gravity is the space-oriented segment of the Swiss technology group RUAG. At a total of fourteen sites in Switzerland ( Zurich, Emmen and Nyon), Sweden (Gothenburg, Linköping), Finland ( Tampere), Germany ( Coswig), USA ( Denver, ...
(industrial partner) and Saphyrion (industrial partner).
Status
CubETH is currently under development. The launch was planned for 2017.
Raumschiffchen vom Hönggerberg
''Tages Anzeiger'' (in German)]
See also
* List of CubeSats
The following is a list of CubeSats, nanosatellites used primarily by universities for research missions, typically in low Earth orbits. Some CubeSats became their country's first national satellite. The extensivNanosatellite and CubeSat Databas ...
References
{{reflist
CubeSats
Student satellites
Satellites of Switzerland