PH’s first CubeSat launched into orbit
Small size, big mission. The country’s first cube satellite (CubeSat), “Maya-1,” was launched into orbit last Friday from the International Space Station (ISS), along with two other identical CubeSats from Bhutan and Malaysia.
Just 10 cubic centimeters in size and one-kilogram in weight, Maya-1 was
launched into space last June 29.
Maya-1, a 1U cube satellite (CubeSat) built in Japan, was deployed through the Japanese Experimental Module Small Satellite Orbital Deployer (J-SSOD) in the “Kibo” module – the same module used to deploy the Philippines’ “Diwata-1” more than two years ago.
Much like its predecessor Diwata-1, Maya-1 was built and designed by Filipinos.
Maya-1, along with BHUTAN-1 of Bhutan and UiTMSAT-1 of Malaysia, are produced under the auspices of the second generation of the 2nd Joint Global Multi-Nation BIRDS Satellite Project or BIRDS-2 Project of the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan.
Several 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 and witnessed the release.
Maya-1 was built under the Development of the Philippine Scientific Earth Observation Microsatellite (PHL-Microsat) Program, a multi-year collaborative research and development program funded by the DOST and jointly implemented by the University of the Philippines Diliman and the Advanced Science and Technology Institute of the DOST.
Joven Javier, who is currently taking up his master’s degree, and Adrian Salces who is taking his doctoral degree in space engineering, developed Maya-1 under the BIRDS-2 Project of the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Fukuoka Prefecture.
Within a few days after Maya-1 and the two other CubeSats were released from the ISS, the global network of ten amateur ground stations (GS) of the BIRDS program will confirm communication with them.
These ground stations are located in the Philippines, Japan, Malaysia, Bhutan, Mongolia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Ghana, Taiwan, and Thailand.
According to Javier of the Advanced Science and Technology Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-ASTI) and who worked on Maya-1, focusing on the first contact with the CubeSat and confirming its operation is a main priority.
“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,” Javier said.
The CubeSats will follow the ISS orbit at an altitude of approximately 400 kilometers and are expected to remain in orbit for about a year. Maya-1 is expected to pass over or near the Philippines an average of three to four times in a day.
Each time Maya-1 would pass over the Philippines will last around 8 minutes.
During these passes, the Ground Station (GS), located at the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute (EEEI) in the University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD), will be attempting to upload commands and download data from Maya-1 as part of its scientific mission.
In its 10-cubic cm frame, Maya-1 contains an Automatic Packet Radio Service Digipeater which can communicate with ham radios. One of the missions of the 1-unit (1U) CubeSat is the Store-and-Forward (S&F) System. It will collect data from ground sensor terminals within its footprint, save it, and forward the data to any member of the ground station.
The S&F system provides a mechanism to enable collection of useful data from remote locations that normally do not have access to regular communications infrastructure.
Some of the possible applications of the S&F system include collecting data that can be used to generate early warnings for landslides and flashfloods, complementing systems for monitoring health conditions of people in remote areas, and systems for tracking endangered species and fish vessels.