Overview and operations of CubeSat FITSAT-1 (NIWAKA)

Author

Tanaka, T. ; Kawamura, Yuriko ; Tanaka, T.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci. & Eng., Fukuoka Inst. Tech., Fukuoka, Japan

fYear

2013

fDate

12-14 June 2013

Firstpage

887

Lastpage

892

Abstract

FITSAT-1 (NIWAKA) is a 10 cm 1U CubeSat which was deployed from ISS/JEM on October 4, 2012. The main mission of NIWAKA is to demonstrate a high speed transmitter module developed by our group (115.2 kbps, 5.8 GHz, FSK, 2 W RF output). It can transmit VGA resolution jpeg images (640×480 pixels) in 2 to 6 seconds. The secondary mission is to make the satellite twinkle as an “artificial star” using high-output LEDs. This light was observed by binoculars, imaged by cameras, and detected by a photo-multiplier mounted on a telescope. We also discovered a phenomenon of increasing rotation of NIWAKA.

Keywords

artificial satellites; cameras; data compression; image coding; image resolution; light emitting diodes; photodetectors; photomultipliers; radio transmitters; radiotelescopes; video communication; CubeSat FITSAT-1; ISS-JEM; NIWAKA; VGA resolution JPEG imaging transmission; artificial star satellite; binocular observation; bit rate 115.2 kbit/s; camera; frequency 5.8 GHz; high speed transmitter module; high-output LED; photomultiplier detection; power 2 kW; size 10 cm; telescope; time 2 s to 6 s; Antennas; Batteries; Cameras; Frequency shift keying; Light emitting diodes; Temperature measurement; Temperature sensors; 115.2 kbps; 5.8GHz; LED; cubesat; high speed transmission; increasing rotation; optical communication;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Recent Advances in Space Technologies (RAST), 2013 6th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Istanbul

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-6395-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/RAST.2013.6581339

Filename

6581339