Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is celebrating after the successful Sunday launch of its Innovative Satellite Technology Demonstration No. 4, which is packed with 16 intriguing payloads.
The aim of JAXA’s Innovative Satellite Technology Demonstration Program is to test ideas proposed by researchers from academia and private industry. The space agency issues an open call for proposals, then conducts a competitive evaluation process to select payloads. Advancing Japan’s capabilities in space, and the competitiveness of the nation’s space industry, are major goals of the program.
Sixteen experiments made the cut for this mission, which after a few weather-related delays made it into space on Sunday atop a Rocket Lab Electron that launched from New Zealand. You can watch the launch below.
The main payload aboard the rocket was RAISE-4, a 110-kg satellite carrying eight experiments, including:
The launch also carried eight CubeSats into space, including OrigamiSat-2. The 3U craft carries what JAXA describes as 10 cm cube containing “an unprecedentedly lightweight and highly packable deployable array antenna for space, with antenna elements attached to a two-layer deployable membrane that can be folded using origami techniques.”
When unfolded, the origami becomes “approximately 25 times larger” than the 10cm cube, giving the CubeSat a more efficient antenna.
Another interesting CubeSat on the mission is “WASEDA-SAT-ZERO-II,” as its creators at Waseda University 3D-printed the sat’s housing using a design that uses no screws, no mechanical parts, and hopefully produces zero debris. Within the housing is a membrane made of planar elements that also resemble origami and will help with deployment experiments.
Other CubeSats on the mission include:
JAXA plans to spend two months prepping the above experiments, and 13 months taking them for a spin.
The aerospace agency has already chosen two themes for a fifth Innovative Satellite Technology Demonstration – testing consumer-grade electronics in space, and testing a CubeSat with a propulsion system that enables maintenance – but has also announced the program will transition into a new form called the Space Technology Demonstration Acceleration Program (JAXA-STEPS). ®
Source: The register