Rendering of ISTsat-1

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. 

Knowing where you are, and where others around you are going is instrumental to safe and efficient transport and even more so in aviation. Aircraft use a system called Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast, abbreviated to ADS-B, to send information at all times to air traffic control.

But as almost three quarters of our planet is ocean there are many blind spots where ADS-B information is not received by ground receivers: enter space-based ADS-B reception.

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.

Although ISTSat-1 will be monitoring aviation, its primary mission is to inspire people in Portugal with a challenging space project. University students from aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, communication networks and computer engineering are working on this project and gaining hands-on experience on how to design, build and manage space missions.

The CubeSat is the fruit of part of ESA’s education ‘Fly Your Satellite!’ programme offering the unique opportunity to be introduced to the working methods adopted in professional space programmes by participating in their own student satellite project.