FedSat — An Australian research microsatellite Original Research Article

Late in the year 2000 Australia will launch its first satellite in thirty years. FedSat is a research microsatellite with a complement four scientific and engineering payloads. It will be placed in a near-circular sun synchronous 10:30 LT polar orbit at an inclination of 98.7° and altitude 800 km. The primary scientific experiment is a fluxgate magnetometer which will observe field aligned current structures above the auroral zones and other current systems and ultra-low frequency (ULF) plasma waves in the upper ionosphere. A major objective is to study the ionospheric signatures of regular and impulsive ULF waves propagating from the magnetosphere along geomagnetic field lines. An on-board GPS receiver will monitor the vertical and oblique total electron content (TEC) up to the GPS satellites at an altitude of 20,000 km. The communications experiment will test systems of use in future LEO constellations and satellite-ground communications. Research in satellite systems will concentrate on the use of GPS for real time tracking of small satellites while a high performance computer will test the operation of reprogrammable hardware. This paper concentrates on the research to be undertaken using the fluxgate magnetometer and describes the instrumentation.