AAU Cubesat

Launch data: Designation: 27846 / 03031G Launch date 30 Jun 2003 - 14:15:26 UT Launch site  Plesetsk, LC133/3 Launch vehicle  Rokot / Briz-KM (#9) Mission Technology Orbit LEO Polar Perigee/Apogee 820 km, sunsynchronous Inclination   Period

Specifications:

Description:

The main purpose for the AAU-Cubesat (Aalborg University Cubesat) project is for the involved students to achieve a great deal of knowledge about desiging and constructing Space worthy technology, but the "scientific" mission of the AAU CubeSat is to take pictures of the surface of the Earth and particularly of Denmark by using the on-board camera. The images recorded by the satellite will later be transmitted to the ground station, located at Aalborg University, from where they will be distributed over the Internet and made accessible for the general public.

Several success criterias have been defined. A basic success criteria in this case is, to develop and build a satellite which will be able to survive the launch and the hazardous environment in its orbit. Another success criteria is establishment of a communication link with the ground station informing about the status of the satellite. Finally to point the on board camera towards a specific target on the ground, to take an image and to send this data down to the ground station, represents the final success criteria.

To summarize the above the missions sucess criterias are the following:

• That the involved students have achieved some useful knowledge of space technology.
• That communication is establised with the satellite and housekeeping information is retrieved.
• Take and download any picture.
• Test ACS performance.
• Take pictures of certain locations on earth.
• Take pictures of celestrial objects and experiment with the various subsystems. 

Mission details:

• AAUSat-1 of Aalborg University was launched on June 30, 2003 as a secondary payload in a multiple CubeSat launch on a Rockot vehicle from Plesetsk, Russia. Contact with the CubeSat was established. AAUSat-1 was alive for two and a half months before the battery had lost too much capacity to continue operations. During this time only a limited amount of data was successfully downlinked from the satellite due to an undisclosed problem on the satellite transmitter resulting in very weak signals being transmitted. - Still, as a first step into picosatellite technology and student built satellites, the project was considered a success.