Members of the ISTSat-1 team, including supervising professors

ISTSat-1 team photo.

ISTSat-1 is the first-ever nanosatellite designed by students from University of Lisbon’s Instituto Superior Técnico and is part of the second edition of Fly Your Satellite! (FYS), an ESA Education program that gives university students the opportunity to design, build, launch, and operate educational satellites. 

The Portuguese team travelled to the CubeSat Support Facility (CSF) in ESEC (Redu, Belgium) in February 2023 to perform vibration tests. After completion, they travelled to the CSF again for environmental tests from 13 to 24 March in the facility's Thermal Vacuum Chamber (TVAC), which aims at verifying the correct functionality of the spacecraft under space-representative thermal and vacuum environments. The TVAC test is a major milestone for any object bound for space, from smaller CubeSats to large spacecraft. 

The University of Lisbon in Portugal has developed the smallest type of CubeSat – a cube just 10 cm wide – that is set to launch on Ariane 6 and will be receiving aircraft ADS-B signals as it orbits overhead at 587 km above our planet. Developed at the university’s Instituto Superior Técnico the satellite is called ISTSat and will weigh just a little over 1 kg using a flat, patch antenna to monitor aircraft for a whole year once launched from the Ariane 6 upper stage.

The data that ISTSat-1 receives from the aircraft flying around the world will be transmitted to a ground station in Portugal and cross-checked with official aircraft ADS-B flight data. If they match, then the students can say they successfully built an operational satellite that flew on the first launch of Europe’s new rocket Ariane 6 – an impressive line to put on your CV.

Europe’s new rocket Ariane 6 is taking with it space missions each with a unique objective, destination, and team, cheering them on. Whether venturing into Earth orbit to study the planet, peering out to deep space, or testing important new technologies, Ariane 6’s first flight will showcase the versatility and flexibility of this impressive, heavy-lift launcher.