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Goliat is the first artificial satellite developed in
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
.


Description

The nano satellite was developed and built by the
Romanian Space Agency The Romanian Space Agency (ROSA; ) is a public institution with extra-budgetary funding which coordinates Romania's national space technology research programs and space research-related activities. ROSA was founded in 1991 and is subordinated t ...
(ROSA). When the project began, the developers of this satellite were still in college. The satellite is cube-shaped and has a mass of 1 kilogram, and its dimensions are 10 cm on each side. It is built on a
Cubesat A CubeSat is a class of miniaturized satellite based around a form factor consisting of cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than per unit, and often use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components for their electronics and structure. CubeSats ...
platform. The satellite carries out three scientific tasks:
micrometeorite A micrometeorite is a micrometeoroid that has survived entry through the Earth's atmosphere. Usually found on Earth's surface, micrometeorites differ from meteorites in that they are smaller in size, more abundant, and different in composition. T ...
flux measurements,
cosmic radiation Cosmic rays are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the Solar System in our ow ...
flux measurements at LEO and Earth surface imaging via a 3 megapixel camera. The project was funded and supported by the Romanian Ministry of Education and the
European Space Agency , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (120 ...
.


Launch

Although the initial launch was planned for 2008, the project had been postponed due to some issues with the carrier rocket,
Vega Vega is the brightest star in the northern constellation of Lyra. It has the Bayer designation α Lyrae, which is Latinised to Alpha Lyrae and abbreviated Alpha Lyr or α Lyr. This star is relatively close at only from the Sun, a ...
. The satellite was successfully launched on 13 February 2012 from the
Guiana Space Centre The Guiana Space Centre (french: links=no, Centre spatial guyanais; CSG), also called Europe's Spaceport, is a European spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana, a region of France in South America. Kourou is located approximatel ...
, together with
LARES Lares ( , ; archaic , singular ''Lar'') were guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been hero-ancestors, guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries, or fruitfulness, or an amalgam of these. Lare ...
and other CubeSat satellites from other European countries. As of 26 February 2012, it appeared that the satellite had not settled into the orbit properly. Due to a malfunction to its stabilizing system, it was expected that the satellite would spin uncontrollably and eventually get lost in space. However, the coordinator of the project, Mugurel Bălan stated that the situation was under control. The agency managed to make contact with the satellite on 18 February 2012 but only briefly to receive some basic parameters, however it was unable to get its systems running. Contact was lost permanently shortly afterwards. The satellite re-entered the atmosphere on 2 January 2015 and disintegrated.


References

{{Orbital launches in 2012 CubeSats First artificial satellites of a country Spacecraft launched in 2012 Satellites of Romania 2012 in Romania Spacecraft launched by Vega rockets