SwissCube-1 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 ...

operated by

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern Franc ...

(EPFL). The spacecraft 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 ...

, which was designed to conduct research into

nightglow Airglow (also called nightglow) is a faint emission of light by a planetary atmosphere. In the case of Earth's atmosphere, this optical phenomenon causes the night sky never to be completely dark, even after the effects of starlight and diff ...

within the Earth's atmosphere, and to develop technology for future spacecraft. It has also been used for

amateur radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency communi ...

. It was the first Swiss satellite to be launched.

History

SwissCube-1 was launched by the

Indian Space Research Organisation The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO; ) is the national space agency of India, headquartered in Bengaluru. It operates under the Department of Space (DOS) which is directly overseen by the Prime Minister of India, while the Chairman of ...

aboard the

Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) is an expendable medium-lift launch vehicle designed and operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It was developed to allow India to launch its Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites ...

, serial number C14, flying in the Core Alone, or PSLV-CA, configuration. The launch took place from the

First Launch Pad Satish Dhawan Space Centre - SDSC (formerly Sriharikota Range - SHAR) is a rocket launch centre ( spaceport) operated by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It is located in Sriharikota, Tirupati district of Andhra Pradesh. Sriharikota ...

at the

Satish Dhawan Space Centre Satish Dhawan Space Centre - SDSC (formerly Sriharikota Range - SHAR) is a rocket launch centre ( spaceport) operated by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It is located in Sriharikota, Tirupati district of Andhra Pradesh. Sriharikota ...

, at 06:21 UTC on 23 September 2009. SwissCube-1 was a

secondary payload Secondary payload, also known as rideshare payload, is a smaller-sized payload transported to orbit on a launch vehicle that is mostly paid for—and with the date and time of launch and the orbital trajectory determined—by the entity that co ...

aboard the rocket, which deployed the

Oceansat-2 Oceansat-2 is the second Indian satellite built primarily for ocean applications. It was a part of the Indian Remote Sensing Programme satellite series. Oceansat-2 is an Indian satellite designed to provide service continuity for operational us ...

satellite. Five other secondary payloads were flown aboard the rocket; BeeSat,

UWE-2 UWE-2 (University Würzburg's Experimental satellite 2) was a follow-on picosatellite technology demonstration project within the CubeSat family standard, developed and built by students of the University of Würzburg, Germany. The overall obje ...

ITU-pSat1 ITUpSAT1, short for Istanbul Technical University picoSatellite-1) is a single CubeSat built by the Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Istanbul Technical University. It was launched on 23 September 2009 atop a PSLV-C14 satellite ...

, Rubin 9.1 and

Rubin 9.2 Rubin 9.2 is a German experimental satellite payload launched on 23 September 2009 in 06:21 aboard PSLV-CA rocket at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India. Rubin 9.2 shares the host satellite Rubin-9 with another payload, Rubin 9.1. The Rubin-9 ...

. SwissCube-1 is operating in a

sun synchronous orbit A Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), also called a heliosynchronous orbit, is a nearly polar orbit around a planet, in which the satellite passes over any given point of the planet's surface at the same local mean solar time. More technically, it is ...

with an

apogee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any el ...

of , a

perigee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any ell ...

of and 98.28 degrees of

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a Plane of reference, reference plane and the orbital plane or Axis of rotation, axis of direction of the orbiting object ...

to the

equator The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can al ...

. It has an

orbital period The orbital period (also revolution period) is the amount of time a given astronomical object takes to complete one orbit around another object. In astronomy, it usually applies to planets or asteroids orbiting the Sun, moons orbiting planets ...

of 98.5 minutes. Its mission was expected to last between three and twelve months. The mission was extended an additional 18 months in February 2010 and an additional ground command facility was added. It took its first picture on 18 February 2011 and its first airglow picture on 3 March 2011. On 2 December 2011, EPFL ended the SwissCube project and turned over control of the satellite to amateur radio operators. SwissCube is still operational after seven years in space. In anticipation of its future "debris" status in light of the slowly degrading lithium-ion batteries, the

Clean Space One The ClearSpace-1 (ClearSpace One) mission is an ESA Space Debris Removal mission led by ClearSpace SA (a spin-off of the EPFL in Lausanne) and its industrial team. The mission's objective is to demonstrate the complete value chain of Active Debris ...

project was launched in 2012 to provide a spacecraft able to catch SwissCube-1 and remove it from orbit in the 2020 horizon.

Software architecture

* System documentation * The COM (communication), PL (payload), ADCS (attitude and orientation), and EPS (energy) subsystems all have a MSP430F1611 microcontroller * The CDMS (on board computer) has an ATMEL ARM AT91M55800A These microcontrollers used two I²C buses to communicate : one main bus (all subsystems) and one fallback bus (only EPS and COM). The cubesat had 4 operation modes : recovery (not enough power to work), safe (minimum subsystems running), and two standard modes (all subsystems are working nominally).

References

External links

* {{Orbital launches in 2009 Spacecraft launched in 2009 CubeSats Student satellites First artificial satellites of a country Satellites of Switzerland 2009 in Switzerland

History

Software architecture

See also

References

External links