AAUSAT5 CubeSat
AAUSAT5 is a project from Aalborg University. It is the fifth member of their family of AAUSAT satellites, which are aimed at offering students the opportunity to work on real space projects while still studying.
AAUSAT5 was built by a team of students from Aalborg University (Denmark), supervised by their professors, and was selected by the ESA Education Office and the ESA Human Spaceflight and Operations (HSO) Directorate for a CubeSat flight opportunity from the International Space Station (ISS) created in conjunction with the mission to the ISS of the first ESA Danish astronaut, Andreas Mogensen.
The ‘AAUSAT5 CubeSat Mission from the International Space Station’ is the pilot project of the ESA ‘ Fly Your Satellite from the ISS!’ education programme, an extension of the ‘Fly Your Satellite!’ CubeSats education programme.
With ‘Fly Your Satellite!’, ESA aims at providing university students with technical support and the unique opportunity to gain significant practical experience in the full lifecycle of a real, challenging, space project: designing, developing, building, testing, launching and operating a small satellite- from cradle to grave.
AAUSAT5 key facts & figures
| AAUSAT5 | |
| Spacecraft name: | AAUSAT5 |
| Spacecraft characteristics: | |
| - Mass at launch: | 840g |
| - Dimensions: | 10cm x 10cm x 11cm |
| - Power: | 1.5 W |
| - Solar arrays dimension: | 6 solar arrays of approx. 8x8 cm (body mounted) |
| Mission: | |
| - Deployment date: | September 2015 |
| - Operational orbit: | Initially same orbital parameters as the ISS (inclination of 51.6° and altitude between 370 and 460 km). Altitude will then gradually decrease due to orbital drag. |
| - Mission lifetime: | < 1 year |
| Telecommunications parameters: | |
| - Downlinking Frequency: | 437.425 MHz |
| - Ground station: | Aalborg University (operated by students) |
| Payload: | |
| - AIS | Automatic Identification System |
