UniCubeSat-GG

Spacecraft n°:

Italian spacecraft n°: 31

Launch data: Designation  12006 Launch date  13 Feb 2012 - 10:00 UT Launch site  Ko, ELV Launch vehicle  Vega Mission  Technology Perigee / Apogee   km Eccentricity   Inclination   deg Period   min

Spacecraft data:

LARES, ALMASAT and Cubesats being prepared for launch. Credit: ESA

Credit: ESA

Description:

• UniCubeSat-GG (University CubeSat - Gravity Gradient) is nanosatellite by Scuola di Ingegneria Aerospaziale by the Gruppo di Astrodinamica dell'Università degli Studi 'La Sapienza University of Rome' (GAUSS), carrying a gravity gradient boom.
• The main payload of UniCubeSat-GG concerns the study of the gravity gradient enhanced by the presence of two symmetrical deployable booms. The end faces of the booms and the boom elements are equipped with solar panels for additional power generation.

Mission details:

• ESA's new small satellite launch vehicle, Vega, made its first flight successfully on Feb 13, 2011.
  The Vega booster took off from the Ensemble de Lancement Vega (ELV) at Kourou and headed northeast. The Zefiro 9A third stage burnt out at 1005 UTC and entered a marginal orbit (one estimate is around -30 x 775 km; another solution from the limited data available is around 50-60 km x 250-500 km). The stage probably reentered at first perigee at around 1112 UTC south of New Zealand, and has not been cataloged. The AVUM stage first burn was completed at 1008 UTC and probably reached an orbit of around 180 x 1450 km. At 1048 UTC the AVUM second burn began and resulted in a 1435 x 1452 km x 69.5 deg orbit.
• At 1106-1110 UTC AVUM's third burn lowered the perigee resulting in an orbit of around 310 x 1441 km. At 1110 UTC the three P-PODs released their cargo. Finally at 1111 UTC AlmaSat was ejected, and the AVUM vented its remaining propellant, ending up in a 272 x 1431 km x 69.5 km orbit.
• The Lares Support System, attached to the AVUM, can be considered an additional payload, as it includes extensive instrumentation to monitor the launch. It also deployed seven 1U Cubesats from three P-POD deployers:
  • P-POD 1 contained XaTcobeo, from the University of Vigo; `e-st@r' from the Politecnico di Torino; and ROBUSTA from the Universite' de Montpellier 2.
  • P-POD 2 ejected MaSat-1 from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics; Goliat from the University of Bucharest; and PW-Sat-1 from the Warsaw Inst. of Technology (Politechnika Warszawska).
  • P-POD 3 carried UNICubeSat-GG, from U. Roma La Sapienza, which has a gravity gradient experiment.