The Centre Spatial Universitaire (CSU)

Montpellier Montpellier (; ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of France, department of ...

Nîmes Nîmes ( , ; ; Latin: ''Nemausus'') is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Gard Departments of France, department in the Occitania (administrative region), Occitanie Regions of France, region of Southern France. Located between the Med ...

(Montpellier-Nîmes University Space Center) is a division of the

University of Montpellier The University of Montpellier () is a public university, public research university located in Montpellier, in south-east of France. Established in 1220, the University of Montpellier is one of the List of oldest universities in continuous opera ...

. Its purpose is to educate students in space sciences through the design, production and testing of

nanosatellite A small satellite, miniaturized satellite, or smallsat is a satellite of low mass and size, usually under . While all such satellites can be referred to as "small", different classifications are used to categorize them based on mass. Satellites c ...

s. The CSU was created to consolidate nanosatellite activities that were initiated in 2006 by the RADIAC (radiation and components) team of the Institut d'Electronique et des Systèmes, a research institute also affiliated with the university.

Education and research

Student participation

The CSU engages students at various levels from several institutions in nanosatellite projects: * B.Sc. and M.Sc. students from the University of Montpellier * Students from the Nîmes and Montpellier IUTs (university technological institutes) * Ph.D. candidates

Research

The CSU also coordinates Ph.D. and postdoctoral students funded by the Van Allen Foundation. These students, along with CSU personnel, present their scientific work in conferences such as the RADECS (Radiation effects on components and systems) and the 4S Symposium (Small Satellites Systems and Services), as well as publishing their work in scientific journals.

Past Projects

Robusta-1A

In 2006, University of Montpellier responded to a request for student satellite projects by

CNES CNES () is the French national space agency. Headquartered in central Paris, the agency is overseen by the ministries of the Armed Forces, Economy and Finance and Higher Education, Research and Innovation. It operates from the Toulouse Spac ...

(the French national space agency) with

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 proje ...

(Radiation On Bipolar for University Satellite Test Application), an experiment measuring space radiation-induced degradation of bipolar electronic components. The purpose of the project was to validate a test method proposed by the RADIAC team of the Institut d'Electronique et des Systèmes. The ROBUSTA project was approved and after a 6-year development period, over the course of which about 300 students participated, the satellite was launched on the maiden flight of the

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, and ...

launcher on 13 February 2012, becoming the first French cubesat to be launched. Reentry occurred in February 2015.

FRP on Baumanets-2

In 2009, the French-Russian collaboration FRIENDS was launched. This project is a partnership between the Universite of Montpellier and the

Bauman Moscow State Technical University The Bauman Moscow State Technical University (BMSTU; ), sometimes colloquially referred as the ''Bauman School'' or ''Baumanka'' (), is a public technical university (Institute of technology, polytechnic) located in Moscow, Russia. Bauman Univ ...

, during which students from Montpellier designed and produced one of the payloads (FRP – French Research Payload) for BMSTU's student satellite Baumanets-2. The payload experiment was derived from Robusta (research on bipolar component degradation due to space radiation). Student exchanges were also conducted during the project. FRP was designed and tested between 2009 and 2012, and sent to BMSTU in 2013. Baumanets-2 was launched on November 28, 08:41:46 (

Moscow Time Moscow Time (MSK; ) is the time zone for the city of Moscow, Russia, and most of western Russia, including Saint Petersburg. It is the second-westernmost of the eleven time zones of Russia, after the non-continguous Kaliningrad enclave. It h ...

, UTC+03:00) from a Soyuz-2-1b. However, due to an issue with the

Fregat Fregat () is an upper stage developed by NPO Lavochkin for universal compatibility with a wide range of medium- and heavy-lift launch vehicles. Fregat has been used primarily with Soyuz and Zenit rockets, and entered operational service in ...

upper stage, all satellites were lost.

Ongoing projects

Robusta-1B

Robusta-1B is an upgraded version of Robusta-1A with new

quality assurance Quality assurance (QA) is the term used in both manufacturing and service industries to describe the systematic efforts taken to assure that the product(s) delivered to customer(s) meet with the contractual and other agreed upon performance, design ...

procedures intended to enable CSU to validate a new standard 1-U cubesat platform, dubbed Robusta-1U. Due to problems with

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...

's Falcon launcher, launch has been delayed several times, before being moved to a

PSLV The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) is an expendable medium-lift launch vehicle designed and operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It was developed to allow India to launch its Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellite ...

launch on July 23, 2017

Robusta-1C / MTCube

Started in 2014, MTCube's goal is to test (on behalf of the

European Space Agency The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member International organization, international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 ...

) the hardness of several types of memory against space radiation:

Flash memory Flash memory is an Integrated circuit, electronic Non-volatile memory, non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for t ...

, SRAM, MRAM and FRAM.

CELESTA

The CERN Latchup Experiment and STudent sAtellite, CELESTA, started in 2015 as a collaboration between the CSU, the University of Montpellier and the European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN. The scope of the research is the integration of the CERN Radiation Monitors as scientific payload on a 1U CubeSat based on the Robusta structure. The project is supported by the CERN Knowledge Transfer and it is the first nanosatellite project ever started and financed by CERN.

Robusta-3A / Méditerranée

The ''Méditerranée'' project will be a 3U cubesat, whose main missions are: * Transmission of GPS data between ships and

Météo-France Météo-France is the official French meteorological administration, also offering services to Andorra and Monaco. It has the powers of the state and can exercise them in relation to meteorology. Météo-France is in charge of observing, study ...

's reception centers in order to improve weather forecasting in the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

area. * Provide data transmission capabilities to isolated schools in

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

and

Burkina-Faso Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa, bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Ivory Coast to the southwest. It covers an area of 274,223 km2 (105,87 ...

Experimental rockets

The experimental rockets program allows IUT de Nîmes students to design and test rockets (Fusex) for Planete Science's C'Space annual challenge. The first successful launch occurred in 2013 with a nominal flight.

Staff

The space center staff (about 50 people) is composed of associate and full professors, teachers, engineers, post-doctoral students, Ph.D. students, interns and radio hams.

Facilities

New facilities in University of Montpellier, completed in Q3-2015 provide a dedicated work area with mechanical and thermal test capabilities for CSU, its private industry collaborators, and other nanosatellite manufacturers. A gamma irradiation facility is under construction and expected to start operations in early 2017.

References

Notes

External links

Fondation Van Allen
{{DEFAULTSORT:Centre Spatial Universitaire Montpellier-Nimes Student satellites CubeSats Institutes associated with CERN