Nanosatellites

13 I-3bIn-orbit Technology Demonstration

Jaime Estela

Spectrum Aerospace Group, Munich, Germany

13.1 Introduction

The market of small satellites continues to grow, and more and more nanosatellites will be built and launched. New nanosatellite hardware manufacturers develop hardware for such satellite platforms. Most of these new hardware products are tested only on the ground, with no flight heritage. For a commercial product, a flight heritage is a very important issue and potential customers ask always for such characteristic. Nowadays, very few flight opportunities exist for technology demonstration. Almost all these flights will be granted by space agencies. The problem is that the demand is much bigger than the available flights. Furthermore, such flights involve a long process, and it takes at least 2 years until the experiment is launched into space. In-Orbit Demonstration (IOD) and In-Orbit Validation (IOV) are at priority for most space agencies and suitable programs have already started. Such programs have long selection and implementation processes and the competition is hard. The technology evolves very fast and the validation of new products in a real space environment is necessary. The absence of efficient IOD/IOV programs hinders the introduction of new products in the space market. Small satellites will be used for more ambitious missions, such as high-resolution remote sensing, communications, IoT services, deep space missions, and others. These kinds of missions ...