[Satnews] China has successfully launched three, first-of-their-kind CubeSats, which will assist in tracking civil aircraft and ships and avoid tragedies, such ase the missing flight MH370, official Chinese media said.
The three CubeSats—in a mission coded STU-2—were launched on September 25 and have entered their designed orbit, according to the mission’s chief designer, Wu Shufan. The three spacecraft—weighing only 6.8 kilograms in total—are equipped with polar region observation cameras as well as automatic identification system receivers for information from ships and automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) receivers for messages sent from civil flights. The ADS-B system was developed to be installed on civil aircraft and to then transmit readings of the flight’s position, height, speed, direction and other information automatically every second to receivers on the ground or in the air. Currently, more than 70 per cent of aircraft have such systems installed.
As of September 28, the STU-2 CubeSats had collected hundreds of thousands of ADS-B messages from more than 12,400 aircraft flying within receiving range, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The paths and traffic flow of civil flights within the satellites’ monitoring area may be collected in real time.
CubeSats may also be used to provide information support for ship operations such as the Chinese icebreaker Xuelong (Snow Dragon) in polar regions. Wu said the STU-2 mission, the first of its kind by China, is a step in the country’s satellite network development for civil aircraft and ship monitoring. China is currently developing its own global position system (GPS) Beidu to rival US GPS.
Wu also called for more international cooperation to expand the network’s reach. Like a Rubik’s cube, a CubeSat is a satellite composed of smaller cubic units. Depending on its different uses, a CubeSat may contain two, three or more such units. Compared with other integral satellites, cube spacecraft are generally smaller, lighter and much more economical in development and production costs.
Executive Comment
“If there are enough satellites in orbit to cover a region wide enough, a specific flight could be tracked and that may help with spotting, search and rescue in cases like Malaysia Airlines flight MH370,” Wu said.
Attention…
For a thorough immersion in the smallsat market segment, consider attending the upcoming, two-day and extremely important SmallSat Symposium. This highly informative symposium will be conducted on Tuesday, February 23, and Wednesday, February 24, 2016. The event will occur at the Hogan Lovells Conference Center in Menlo Park, California, and is sponsored by Satnews Publishers and Hogan Lovells.
For further details and to register, please visit https://www.smallsatshow.com/?page_id=18
