NanoSat Lab’s 3Cat-4 selected by ESA for the inaugural flight of the new Ariane6 launchers

Among the candidate payloads selected as part of the baseline for this demonstration flight, which will be carried out from the European spaceport Centre Spatianal Guayanais in French Guiana, is the 3Cat-4 nanosatellite from the NanoSat Lab of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya # BarcelonaTech (UPC). This selection has been made following an announcement of opportunity from ESA, which offered a launch to low Earth orbit for experiments up to a total mass of 80 kg and release of payloads with a combined mass of up to 800 kg.

3Cat-4 is the fourth member of the CubeSat series, which aims to demonstrate the capabilities of nanosatellites, and in particular those based on the standard 1-Unit CubeSat, to further the pursuit of Global Navigation Satellite System-Reflectometry (GNSS-R) Earth Observation and microwave L-band radiometry, as well as Automatic Identification Services (AIS).

The NanoSat Lab, created by the UPC with the sponsorship of other institutions such as the Institute for Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC – Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya), is a laboratory working mainly on the design and development of small nanosatellite missions and payloads. The NanoSat Lab, conceived to achieve educational, scientific and service objectives, is one of the few European facilities with the necessary equipment to qualify the components to be put into orbit, both technologically and in terms of relevant standards.

The Ariane 6 demonstration flight will contribute to the qualification of its launch system as part of the transition from its predecessor, Ariane 5. This launch is an important step in the preparation of future institutional missions planned to be launched with Ariane 6, such as the GALILEO satellite navigation system, built by the European Union and ESA.

Main Image: 
Simulation of the 3Cat-4 in orbit.
Credit: UPC