PicoDragon is a small satellite that followed the 1U type of

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 ...

program built by

Vietnam National Satellite Center The Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology ( vi, Viện Hàn lâm Khoa học và Công nghệ Việt Nam) is the largest and most prominent research institute in Vietnam. It was founded on 20 May 1975 as the Vietnam Academy of Science, and ren ...

belong to

VAST Vast or VAST may refer to: * ''Vast'' (novel), a 1998 science fiction novel by Linda Nagata * ''Vast'' (2011 film), a Dutch film, winner of the 2011 Golden Calf for Best Television Drama * Vast Broadband, an American cable and internet compan ...

and operated in space for 3 months. It was the first product to be built in Vietnam in the space technology field. The target for this project is to co-operate in space technology development between

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

and Japan. It is also the first Vietnamese satellite to launch successfully to space. Before, there had been 4 satellites launched including:

VNREDSat 1A VNREDSat-1 (short for Vietnam Natural Resources, Environment and Disaster Monitoring Satellite, also VNREDSat-1A) is the first optical Earth Observing satellite of Vietnam; its primary mission is to monitor and study the effects of climate chang ...

, F-1, Vinasat-1 and

Vinasat-2 Vinasat-2 (stylized all uppercase) is the second Vietnamese satellite to be placed in orbit. It was launched at 22:13 UTC on May 15, 2012 (5:13am on May 16 in the Vietnam time zone) at the European Spaceport in Kourou in French Guiana in South ...

but F-1 which failed when launching. Vinasat-1,

were all built by foreign partners or companies.

Specifications

*Size: * Weight: * Time operating: About 3 months * Orbit ** High: ** Inclination: 51.6 degrees * Senses devices: ** CMOS camera (640 × 480 dpi) to take picture about Earth * Contact by wireless link ** Broadcast station frequency about 437.250 MHz ** Telemetry downlink 1k2 bit/s AFSK 800 mW AX.25 about 437.365 MHz ** Very high frequency uplink use for control.

Journey

2:48 AM (Vietnamese time zone) 4 August 2013, PicoDragon followed by

ArduSat-1 ArduSat is an Arduino based nanosatellite, based on the CubeSat standard. It contains a set of Arduino boards and sensors. The general public will be allowed to use these Arduinos and sensors for their own creative purposes while they are in spac ...

ArduSat-X ArduSat is an Arduino based nanosatellite, based on the CubeSat standard. It contains a set of Arduino boards and sensors. The general public will be allowed to use these Arduinos and sensors for their own creative purposes while they are in spac ...

, TechEdSat-3 of United States and

Kirobo Kirobo is Japan's first robot astronaut, developed by University of Tokyo and Tomotaka Takahashi, to accompany Koichi Wakata, the first Japanese commander of the International Space Station. Kirobo arrived on the ISS on August 10, 2013 on JAXA's ...

robot of Japan were launched at

Tanegashima is one of the Ōsumi Islands belonging to Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. The island, 444.99 km2 in area, is the second largest of the Ōsumi Islands, and has a population of 33,000 people. Access to the island is by ferry, or by air to New ...

by Kounotori of Japan. Before the launch into orbit to operate by

ISS The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (J ...

, it was held back to check. 19 November 2013 (Vietnamese time zone) PicoDragon was launched into orbit by the

. 4 hours later, some first signals were successfully received by the ground station in Japan. After that, the ground station of VNSC also received signals from PicoDragon. Before, 4 August, PicoDragon was successfully launch into

through the transport spacecraft

HTV-4 Kounotori 4, also known as HTV-4, was the fourth flight of the H-II Transfer Vehicle, an uncrewed cargo spacecraft launched in August 2013 to resupply the International Space Station. It launched from Tanegashima Space Center aboard H-IIB No. ...

of Japan. After more than 3 months in the orbit, PicoDragon completed the mission but burned when it entered the atmosphere.

Future

Follow doctor Pham Anh Tuan, director of Vietnam National Satellite Center, after PicoDragon, Vietnam will build more satellites ( in 2015 and in 2017) and in 2020 will launch a satellite to observing the Earth from space.

References

HTV4 (KOUNOTORI 4) Mission Press KitPico Dragon

External links

PicoDragon - Vietnam National Satellite Center
{{Orbital launches in 2013 2013 in Vietnam Satellites of Vietnam