Philippine’s first CubeSat launched into Space
“Maya-1”, the Philippines’ first cube satellite (CubeSat), was launched into orbit last June 29 from the International Space Station (ISS).
Measuring just 10 cubic centimeters in size and 1 kilogram in weight, Maya-1 was built and designed by Filipinos. It was deployed through the Japanese Experimental Module Small Satellite Orbital Deployer (J-SSOD) in the “Kibo” module, which was also used to deploy “Diwata-1”, another satellite built and designed by Filipinos, more than two years ago
It was launched along with two other identical CubeSats from Bhutan (BHUTAN-1) and Malaysia (UiTMSAT-1). All were produced with the support of the second generation of the Joint Global Multi-Nation BIRDS Satellite Project (a.k.a BIRDS-2 Project) of the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan.
Filipino Officials from the DOST and the University of the Philippines (UP) were at the Tsukuba Space Center (TSC) of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in Ibaraki Prefecture in Japan to witness the release.
Joven Javier of the Advanced Science and Technology Institute of the DOST, one of the Filipino engineers who worked on Maya-1, said that their main priority is to focus on first contact with the CubeSat, and confirm its operation.
“Right after the release, we will check which ground station will be the first to acquire the signal from the CubeSats, then we will contact them live from there,” said Javier.
A global network of 10 amateur ground stations (GS) of the BIRDS program will confirm communication with the satellites. These are located in the Philippines, Japan, Malaysia, Bhutan, Mongolia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Ghana, Taiwan, and Thailand.
The CubeSats are expected to remain in its orbit at an altitude of approximately 400 kilometers (following the ISS orbit) for about a year.
During this time, Maya-1 is expected to pass over or near Philippines at an average of three to four times a day. During these passess, which last around 8 minutes, the GS located at the Electrical and Electronics Institute in the University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD) will be attempting to upload commands and download data from our CubeSat, as part of its scientific mission.
In its small frame, Maya-1 contains an Automatic Packet Radio Service Digipeater which can communicate with ham radios. One of its missions is the Store-and-Forward (S&F) System, which collects data from ground sensor terminals and forwards it to any member of the ground station. This provides a mechanism to enable collection of data from locations that normally do not have access to regular communications infrastructure.
Several possible applications of the data collected and transmitted by the S&F system include generating early warnings for landslides and flash-floods, complementing systems for health condition monitoring in remote areas, and providing systems for tracking endangered species and fish vessels.
Maya-1 was a result of a multi-year collaborative research and development effort funded by the DOST called the Development of the Philippine Scientific Earth Observation Microsatellite (PHL-Microsat) Program. It is jointly implemented by UP Diliman and the Advanced Science and Technology Institute of the DOST.
via Manila Bulletin / Dhel Nazario
