Munetaka Kashiwa

Tokyo Tech CubeSat: CUTE-I - Design & Development of Flight Model and Future Plan -

Laboratory for Space Systems, Tokyo Institute of Technology finished development of CUTE-I and is waiting for its launch on June 30, 2003. CUTE-I is the first CubeSat of Tokyo Institute of Technology, that is a 10 cm-edge cube-sized satellite of less than 1kg mass. CUTE-I has three missions such as communication, attitude sensing and deployment. to establish a bus component design for pico satellites like the CubeSat. In parallel with the CUTE-I development, we also developed a separation mechanism that is used to separate CUTE-I from the launcher on orbit. In this paper, we describe the design of CUTE-I and the separation mechanism as well as results of environment tests such as long-range communication test, thermal vacuum test, vibration test and separation test. We also mention a Tokyo Tech future plan on our satellite development.

Tokyo Tech 1kg Pico-Satellite CUTE-I-Development, Launch & Operations

Abstract Tokyo Institute of Technology, Laboratory for Space Systems had developed a 1 kg pico-satellite CubeSat, CUTE-I, and it was successfully launched on June 30 2003 by a Eurockots rocket. CUTE-I is one of the first launched CubeSats and also the smallest civilian satellites in the world, which are able to make dual-directional communications with the ground stations. In this paper, the total design of CUTE-I flight model and operation results focused on its attitude analyses are explained.