CubeSat kit

Following on from the successful “Vega maiden flight CubeSat workshop” held at ESA/ESTEC in January 2008, which was the first CubeSat workshop to be held at European-level, the ESA Education Office is pleased to announce the Second European CubeSat workshop one year later as planned.

This Second European CubeSat workshop will take place in ESA/ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands on 20-22 January 2009.

Since the first workshop, the ESA Education Office in the Directorate of Legal Affairs & External Relations in conjunction with the Directorate of Launchers has selected nine CubeSats (plus two backups) from European universities for launch on the maiden flight of the Vega launcher, now scheduled for November 2009. The nine CubeSats will be deployed from three different deployment systems mounted on the support structure of the main payload, LARES (LAser RElativity Satellite), into an orbit of 350 km by 1450 km at an inclination of 71 degrees. The launch opportunity is offered by ESA to the selected CubeSats free of charge, and recognises the growing importance of the CubeSat as a powerful hands-on space education tool. It is intended as a first step to boost student hands-on development of CubeSats in Europe, thus providing a suitable and qualified space workforce for the future in complement with other education project activities.

The main aims of the Second European CubeSat workshop are to:

• report upon on the development status of the CubeSats selected for the Vega maiden flight;
• outline ESA’s long-term strategy for supporting CubeSats, including plans for cooperation/coordination and the prospects of future flight opportunities, for instance on the first and subsequent VERTA flights of the Vega launcher;
• to facilitate information and data exchange between CubeSat teams, ESA and commercial suppliers on lessons learned, best practices, mission applications, technologies and instrumentation, cooperative space/ground networks, and future mission plans/concepts.

Workshop programme

Artist's impression of Vega small launcher in flight

The workshop consists of invited papers and contributed papers selected from a call for papers, and will include both oral presentations (20 min.) and a poster session over a period of three full days in room Newton 1+2. Invited papers will include status reports from the 11 CubeSats associated with the Vega maiden flight.

In addition, a round table discussion is planned, involving key members of the CubeSat community within and outside Europe in an interactive session with the workshop participants. The Round Table will address themes related to current issues and future evolution of the CubeSat field. Following the round table, all workshop participants will be invited to a workshop buffet dinner.

The ESA Education Office plans to sponsor up to three students from each participating CubeSat team (from an ESA Member or Cooperating State) to attend the event, and organise a tour of the ESTEC test facilities.

A preliminary programme, along with a list of speakers, will be announced on this web page once finalised after the call for papers.

The advance schedule is as follows:

Call for papers

Students with a model CubeSat

The ESA Education Office solicits abstracts to be submitted for oral or poster presentation on the following topics:

• CubeSat Development & Flight Experiences (e.g. recent past or ongoing missions, lessons learned, education/engineering best practices);
• CubeSat Kits & Deployment Systems (e.g. commercially available mechanical, electrical, radio, solar panel kits & deployers);
• Scientific Missions & Instruments;
• Technology Demonstration using CubeSats;
• CubeSat Ground Segment & Operations (e.g. GENSO network, new ground station technologies & operational methods/techniques/software);
• CubeSat Networks & Applications (e.g. distributed sensor networks such as Space weather & atmospheric constellations, radio astronomy interferometry swarm, and applications such as low-cost communications relay/asset tracking, disaster monitoring etc.);
• Planned CubeSat Missions;
• Future Flight Opportunities for CubeSats (e.g. upcoming launch opportunities and launch services).

Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted as part of the online registration form by 30 November 2008. Authors will be notified of the outcome of the selection on or before 8 December 2008.

Abstracts submitted by students should be endorsed by a professor/teacher from their university.

The call is open to both European and non-European participants.

Selected authors will be asked to provide a copy of their presentations to the conference organisers by 16 January 2009 for distribution to all workshop participants.