Session
Technical Session XIII:Education
Abstract
Kyushu Institute of Technology initiated Joint Global Multi-National Birds (aka, BIRDS) project in 2015. It is a constellation of five 1U CubeSats built by a group of students from Japan, Ghana, Mongolia, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Thailand. The constellation will be operated via a network of seven ground stations distributed worldwide including the one in Taiwan. Its prime mission is to “By successfully building and operating the first satellite of the country, make the first step toward indigenous space program”. The mission success criteria is that after the students graduate, they succeed in developing and operating the second satellite in their home country. Because of this, the educational aspect of the BIRDS project was carefully designed so that the students gain enough in-depth training to initiate their own space program with the minimum cost utilizing lean satellite approach. The ground station network serves as an important asset to promote the cross-border inter-university space research and education collaboration that the students utilize after they return their home country. The BIRDS project will demonstrates the network operation of a CubeSat constellation via UHF/VHF ground station, which is easily expanded to other frequency ranges in future.
International Network Operations of Five CubeSats Constellation
Kyushu Institute of Technology initiated Joint Global Multi-National Birds (aka, BIRDS) project in 2015. It is a constellation of five 1U CubeSats built by a group of students from Japan, Ghana, Mongolia, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Thailand. The constellation will be operated via a network of seven ground stations distributed worldwide including the one in Taiwan. Its prime mission is to “By successfully building and operating the first satellite of the country, make the first step toward indigenous space program”. The mission success criteria is that after the students graduate, they succeed in developing and operating the second satellite in their home country. Because of this, the educational aspect of the BIRDS project was carefully designed so that the students gain enough in-depth training to initiate their own space program with the minimum cost utilizing lean satellite approach. The ground station network serves as an important asset to promote the cross-border inter-university space research and education collaboration that the students utilize after they return their home country. The BIRDS project will demonstrates the network operation of a CubeSat constellation via UHF/VHF ground station, which is easily expanded to other frequency ranges in future.
