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Opened-out ‘FlatSat’ for CubeSat testing

Written by  Wednesday, 20 October 2021 08:30
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CubeSat FlatSat

ESA’s latest CubeSat mission is destined to never leave the ground. Instead it is doing its duty as an opened-out ‘FlatSat’ – with its interlinked subsystems spread out across a table at the Agency’s Data Systems and Microelectronics Laboratory at its ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands.   

Malte Bargholz with FlatSat
Malte Bargholz with FlatSat

“This dissembled CubeSat has all its subsystems easily accessible,” explains ESA Young Graduate Trainee Malte Bargholz, working on the FlatSat project. “This includes its on-board computer, radio and telemetry, its attitude and orbit control system, battery and power system and satellite navigation receiver, along with additional slots to plug in external hardware”.

“This setup allows us to access and test everything in a straightforward way, compared to a normal satellite where everything ends up tightly integrated and packed together – especially in the case of miniaturised CubeSats. We can also try out new approaches for operating such missions, and test the interoperability of various commercial CubeSat components.”


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