PW-Sat is a series of satellites that includes the first

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

artificial satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisoto ...

which was launched 13 February 2012 from

ELA-1 ELA-1, short for Ensemble de Lancement Ariane 1 (French for Ariane Launch Area 1), now named Ensemble de Lancement Vega (short ELV), is a launch pad at the Centre Spatial Guyanais in French Guiana. It has been used to support launches of 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 ...

aboard Italian-built Vega launch vehicle during its maiden voyage. PW-Sat1's mission was to test experimental elastic solar cells, as well as an orbital decay technology consisting of a "tail" designed to speed re-entry. It was expected to last for 1 year. PW-Sat1 was a 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 ...

satellite constructed by the

Faculty of Power and Aeronautical Engineering of Warsaw University of Technology Faculty of Power and Aeronautical Engineering (pl.: Wydział Mechaniczny Energetyki i Lotnictwa, MEL, MEiL) is located on the Central Campus of the Warsaw University of Technology The Warsaw University of Technology ( pl, Politechnika Warszawsk ...

in cooperation with the Space Research Centre of the

Polish Academy of Sciences The Polish Academy of Sciences ( pl, Polska Akademia Nauk, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society o ...

History

The PW-Sat project was created in 2004 when group of students from

Warsaw University of Technology The Warsaw University of Technology ( pl, Politechnika Warszawska, lit=Varsovian Polytechnic) is one of the leading institutes of technology in Poland and one of the largest in Central Europe. It employs 2,453 teaching faculty, with 357 professor ...

decided to build satellite compatible with CubeSat 1U standard. Initially planned for a 2007 launch, delays in the development of the Vega caused the mission to be postponed until 2012. The cost of the project was estimated to be 200,000

Polish zloty Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

(63,205

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

), with funding coming from the university's budget, as well as from an agreement between Poland and the European Space Agency.

Hardware

PW-Sat1 was a 10x10x10 cm cube with a mass of 1 kg. It is equipped with the following hardware: *EPS: power module *ANTS: antenna management system *COM: communication compartment *PLD: elastic solar cells management sub-system *OBC: main computer *Access port *Elastic solar cells (part of primary mission) *Atmospheric drag device (part of primary mission) *

AX.25 AX.25 (Amateur X.25) is a data link layer protocol originally derived from layer 2 of the X.25 protocol suite and designed for use by amateur radio operators. It is used extensively on amateur packet radio networks. AX.25 v2.0 and later occupies t ...

transceiver * CW beacon transmitting on 145.901 MHz for tracking by radio amateurs

PW-Sat1

Mission

PW-Sat1 was launched on 13 February 2012, 10:00 UTC from

(

Kourou Kourou () is a commune in French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France in South America. Kourou is famous for being the location of the Guiana Space Centre, the main spaceport of France and the European Space Agency (ESA). It i ...

French Guiana French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic coast of South America in the Guianas. ...

) aboard the maiden flight of the Vega rocket, 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 ALMASat-1 satellites and 6 other CubeSats built by various European universities. It was deployed 1 hour 10 minutes into the flight from the P-POD-2 container, along with the

ROBUSTA ROBUSTA (Radiation on Bipolar for University Satellite Test Application) is a nano-satellite scientific experiment developed by the University of Montpellier students as part of a Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) call for student projects ...

and

MaSat-1 MaSat-1 (from the words ''Magyar'' and ''Satellite'', the first meaning " Hungarian" in Hungarian, ''maszat'', pronounced IPA �mɒsɒt meaning "smudge") is the first indigenous Hungarian satellite, developed and built by students at the Technical ...

CubeSats. First signals from satellite were received around 12:10 UTC by radio amateurs. The first Polish reception of PW-Sat1's signals came at 12:15 UTC by CAMK in Warsaw. PW-Sat1 was planned stay in orbit until 2013, when it was planned to perform a destructive atmospheric reentry. The satellite used a large amount of the batteries' stored energy while performing tasks early in the mission. This battery depletion, combined with orbital maneuvers designed so the satellite would fly over Poland, delayed deployment of the tail. Commands of tail deployment were sent from Earth on April and May 2012, but PW-Sat did not respond to the commands. Due to a hardware issue with the communication module (that was discovered on a few other CubeSats using the same model) communication with the satellite was problematic and the tail couldn't be extended. PW-Sat1 reentered the atmosphere on 28 October 2014. Development of a successor, PW-Sat2, begun in September 2013 with launch planned for 2017.

PW-Sat2

Mission

References

{{Orbital launches in 2012 CubeSats First artificial satellites of a country Student satellites Spacecraft launched in 2012 Satellites of Poland Polish inventions Spacecraft launched by Vega rockets 2012 in Poland

History

Hardware

PW-Sat1

Mission

PW-Sat2

Mission

See also

References