The Onboard Space Systems research group at Space Campus in Kiruna increases its cooperation with the space industry, and have started a collaboration with the UK-based company Open Cosmos. Together they have developed a CubeSat carrying a payload to study the atomic oxygen of the lower layers of the thermosphere.

– This collaboration will provide our research group with a rich experience of complete assembly and test of a CubeSat, along with an opportunity to develop and verify new platforms for concurrent engineering and end-to-end test of miniaturized spacecraft. This strengthens the testbed we have here in Kiruna, says Professor Reza Emami at Luleå University of Technology.

The collaboration between Luleå University of Technology and the London-based company Open Cosmos is within the framework of the QB50 program [QB50 program-länk] and is funded by the European Commission. A total of nearly fifty satellites, built by international academic teams in collaboration with the industry, will be carried to the International Space Station before being released into space.

Open Cosmos is a start-up company specialised on designing, manufacturing and testing miniaturized satellites. In this project they will provide hardware, software and the integration of the satellite.

– Our mission is to provide simple and affordable access to space by using nanosatellite technology, said Aleix Megias, partner and system engineer at Open Cosmos.

At this point, the satellite is completely integrated and has now entered its test phase. Launch is planned before the end of this year. The Onboard Space Systems research group at Space Campus in Kiruna will operate the satellite alongside the other QB50 CubeSats by the end of 2016.

– To collaborate with a well-established space university like Luleå university of technology is a strategic choice for our company. This gives us the opportunity to work together with skilled people in the cutting edge of space technology and in addition we contribute to important research.

The satellite will carry an instrument FIPEX is provided by TU Dresden through the Von Karman Institute in order to study the atomic oxygen of the largely unexplored low layers of the thermosphere. The experiment has been flown to the international space station before but never together in a cluster. This time it will be operating together with many other CubeSats in order to collect much more information and data from different points around the globe.

Read more about Onboard Space Systems at www.ltu.se

Read more about Open Cosmos at www.open-cosmos.com

Contact

Reza Emami, Professor, Holder of a Chair at Onboard Space Systems
Luleå University of Technology
Phone: +46 (0)980 67546
Email: [email protected]

Aleix Megías, partner and systems engineer
Open Cosmos
Email: [email protected]