Two UPC NanoSat Lab missions, ready to be launched into space
In the upper and lower images: Mission coordinator at Fly Your Satellite! Cristina del Castillo, team leader Luis Contreras, master’s degree student Júlia Alós and doctoral student Nataly Buitrago during the pre-integration tests of 3Cat-4 in the Exolaunch deployer in Berlin (Germany). Source: Exolaunch
The student teams of 3Cat-4 (UPC) and ISTSat-1 (Técnico Lisboa), the next Portuguese nanosatellite to fly into space, with ESA’s Fly Your Satellite! programme coordinators and Exolaunch representatives. Source: Exolaunch
Students from the UPC’s NanoSat Lab travelled to Berlin and successfully completed the final integration of the 3Cat-4 nanosatellite into the Exolaunch deployer that will bring it to space on the European launcher Ariane 6 maiden flight, scheduled for next July 9. A few weeks earlier, another team at the same laboratory completed the RITA/³Cat-6 payload, which will launch aboard the AlAinSat-1 satellite of the National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC) at the United Arab Emirates University.
Jun 08, 2024
The 3Cat-4 (read “cube-cat-four”) is a 1-unit CubeSat-type nanosatellite for Earth observation, developed by doctoral, bachelor’s degree and master’s degree students at the NanoSat Lab, the small satellite and payload laboratory of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC). The nanosatellite is part of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Fly Your Satellite! programme, which gives university students the opportunity to design, build and launch their own satellites into orbit.
Luis Contreras and Nataly Buitrago, students from UPC’s doctoral degree programme in Aerospace Science and Technology, and Júlia Alós, a student from the Telecommunications Engineering master’s degree programme at the Barcelona School of Telecommunications Engineering (ETSETB), successfully integrated 3Cat-4 at Exolaunch, a leading launch mission integrator and deployment technologies manufacturer headquartered in Germany. Exolaunch’s flight-proven 16U EXOpod Nova deployer will house 3Cat-4, which will launch on the Ariane 6 maiden flight from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, scheduled for next July 9.
The rocket will travel to space with a new deployer to place in orbit some 50 nanosatellites, of which 3Cat-4 is the only Catalan instrument and one of two from Spain on board.
Integrating 3Cat-4 with the Exolaunch’s EXOpod Nova module was the last operation in which the UPC students had this small nanosatellite in their hands. It has marked a milestone in a journey that has involved dozens of bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and doctoral students over 7 years of work.
Systems engineer and team leader Luis Contreras explained that he started working on the mission during his master’s thesis. First, by performing structural analyses of 3Cat-4, but later he got involved in other missions and ended up writing his doctoral thesis on it and participating in the functional tests of 3Cat-4. He also noted that last checks in Berlin were flawless and that it had been an emotional farewell, as they felt that all the hard work so far had been totally worth it, like the thermal vacuum tests in Belgium in May 2023.
A deployable antenna and experimental technology to obtain Earth data
The primary objective of the 3Cat-4 mission is to fly a GNSS-R instrument capable of measuring meteorological phenomena, geographic features and oceanic parameters, with a triple aim: to locate and track vessels to prevent accidents with an AIS system, to observe the Earth to monitor ice and soil moisture and to study interferences in the frequency range to be used.
All this with experimental technology entirely designed at the UPC and a new deployable antenna. Once in orbit, the antenna will perform some of the measurements required: radiometric data and data aimed at mitigating radio frequency interferences using a GPS and Galileo navigation signal reflectometer (GNSS-R).
The primary goal of the mission is educational and was selected by @ESA__Education ‘Fly Your Satellite!’ programme training a group of students in the techniques and methodologies involved in flying a space mission, while conducting challenging teamwork with a real sense of… pic.twitter.com/NsJZ8RW0RD
— ESA Space Transport (@ESA_transport) May 8, 2024
RITA/3Cat-6 payload, ready and on board the AlAinSat-1 satellite
Early in March, another team of UPC students on the doctoral degree in Signal Theory and Communications, led by Adrián Pérez-Portero, also successfully completed the integration campaign of the RITA 3Cat-6 payload aboard the AlAinSat-1 satellite of the National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC) at the United Arab Emirates University in Al Ain.
Pérez-Portero, who was accompanied in this operation by young researchers Amadeu Gonga i Siles and Guillem Gràcia i Solà, explains that unlike 3Cat-4, RITA is not a satellite in itself but an academic Earth observation payload traveling aboard a foreign satellite. Nevertheless, RITA is also considered the sixth mission of the NanoSat Lab and is therefore called 3Cat-6.
Winner of the second IEEE GRSS Student Grand Challenge in 2019, promoted by the Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS) to engage students and young professionals in solving complex engineering problems, the RITA/3Cat-6 mission aims to obtain data on sea salinity and soil moisture using microwave radiometry and measurements of vegetation status with a hyperspectral camera.
In addition, it also carries a technology demonstrator for the LoRa standard, a radio frequency interference detector, and an S-band communication system to download scientific data, all implemented by students.
As mission leader, Adrián Pérez-Portero considers one of the most gratifying experiences was to finally see all the contributions developed by dozens of students over five years integrated into a satellite. And also to witness how RITA successfully communicates with the AlAinSat-1 satellite.
Members of the 3Cat series
The two devices are part of the 3Cat series of small satellites and payloads that have flown or will fly into space with missions developed entirely by students and faculty at the NanoSat Lab. Directed by professor Adriano Camps and located on the UPC’s North Diagonal Campus, this laboratory is linked to the Barcelona School of Telecommunications Engineering (ETSETB), the CommSensLab-UPC specific research centre and the University’s Department of Signal Theory and Communications.
Two UPC PocketQubes selected in the latest edition of ESA’s Fly Your Satellite!
Last February, another team at the UPC's NanoSat Lab won the 4th edition of ESA’s Fly Your Satellite! programme with the PoCat-LEKTON mission, consisting of two PocketQubes to measure radio frequency interference. The team, composed of bachelor’s and master’s degree students at the ETSETB, has now begun the journey to ensure that these two small satellites—the first of a new generation that is smaller than their 3Cat predecessors—reach space.
