On the development of an International CubeSat Mission Between Italy and Argentina with Academic Purposes

BLAS FERNANDO VEGA; DANILO SILVA GRIFFOULIERE; ADA LUZ CABALLERO SIFUENTES; SANTIAGO MARTÍN HENN; DAVID AGUIRRE SALCEDO; CHRISTIAN GÓMEZ; EMMANUEL GÓMEZ; DENIS FERNANDO MARTÍNEZ; IGNACIO PINTOS PALADEA; GUSTAVO SANTOS; ARIEL SOSA VISCONTI; JUAN VARGAS

Buenos Aires

Simposio; 2nd International Academy of Astronautics Latin American Symposium on Small Satellites: Advanced Technologies and Distributed Systems; 2019

International Academy of Astronautics and Instituto Colomb

The Unidad de Formación Superior (UFS) of the Space Agency of Argentina (CONAE) and the School of Aerospace Engineering of La Sapienza University of Rome (Italy), in the context of an international scientific and academic effort and through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding, have agreed to unite strengths to develop a satellite mission, consisting of a nanosatellite in Low Earth Orbit. Given the vast experience of both countries in the aerospace field, and the need to perform an adequate training of the human resources that will take part on future endeavours of Argentinian and Italian Space Agencies and Organizations, the Mission?s Joint Steering Group, composed of experts from both parties, decided to develop the Mission Satellite using the CubeSat standard, specifically, a 3U+ CubeSat. The primary objective of the Mission is an academic one, particularly the training of Master Degree students of the UFS and the School of Aerospace Engineering in all technical and programmatic areas related to aerospace technology, such as those focused in the design, analysis, management, assembly, testing, and operation of a space mission. CubeSats where originally designed for educational purposes and as technology demonstrators, such as training platforms for testing Commercial Of The Shelf (COTS) components usage in a space environment. Nowadays, CubeSats fit in a whole field of applications, mostly relying on missions that do not justify the development of a small satellite, like instruments developed or intended to gather data for unproven scientific theories or techniques. The ItaloArgentinian CubeSat has been preliminary named FS2020 , which stands for ?Formador Satelital 2020? , or Satellite Trainer 2020. This nanosatellite is composed of two modules, Payload Module and Service Module. The Argentinian team will be in charge of the Payload Module, while the Italian team will develop the Service Module. The main scientific instrument of the Payload Module will consist of a thermal infrared camera and its associated optics, denominated MIS-CAM for ? Maestría en Instrumentos Satelitales - Cámara ?, spanish for Master in Satellite Instruments - Camera. This instrument will be used to measure the Earth?s surface temperature using a technique based on a multi-angle view of a same ground pixel, as opposed to the usual technique known as ?Split Windows?, that requires the use of expensive spectral filters.