SathyabamaSat (SB Sat)

About

SathyabamaSat (SB Sat) is a 2-Unit CubeSat developed and built by Sathyabama University,
India. The spacecraft measures 10 by 10 by 20 centimeters in size and weighs 1.5 Kilograms.
Application
The spacecraft is designed to measure the densities of the green house gases(water vapor, carbon
monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane and hydrogen fluoride) over the region in which it moves on
using ARGUS 1000 IR Spectrometer.
Characteristics
It has the usual characteristics of a CubeSat with body-mounted solar arrays for power generation
and communications in the UHF band, however, unlike many CubeSats of comparable size, the
spacecraft makes use of an active attitude control system with magnetometers used for attitude
determination and magnetic torque rods for three-axis control.
Payload
The main payload of SB Sat is an Argus 1000 Infrared Spectrometer, a commercial device marketed
for application in CubeSat missions studying atmospheric species. The grating spectrometer unit is
only 4.5 x 5 x 8 centimeters in size, making it ideally suited for a CubeSat mission. Light entering the
instrument is dispersed by a 300 groove/mm grating and directed onto a 256-element Indium-
Gallium-Arsenide detector array cooled by a Peltier cooler to reduce dark currents.

The spectrometer covers a spectral range of 1.0 to 1.7 micrometers with a 6-nanometer spectral
resolution across 100 spectral channels. Atmospheric species absorbing within the instrument’s
spectral range are oxygen, carbon dioxide, water, carbon monoxide, methane and hydrogen fluoride.
Argus supports integration times between 0.5 and 4 seconds.
Operation
The payload is operated only over the regions where the experimentators are interested, and it
delivers the data to the On-Board Computer (OBC) for transmission, when it crosses the radio
window of ground station, which is being built in Sathyabama University premises, Chennai, India.
Development
The development of SathyabamaSat was initiated in 2009 when ISRO and Sathyabama University
signed an memorandum of understanding to support the design, development and launch of the
satellite. Initially, a space technology centre was established to carry out preliminary studies about
the project including advanced research in rocketry, satellites and space applications, the project was
carried out with the assistance of ISRO scientists. As per the University, the objective of project was
to provide development experience of compact space systems to students. The satellite was launched
along with the Cartosat-2C satellite atop PSLV-C34 on June 22, 2016.
Cost: 1.5 crore
About CubeSat
A CubeSat (U-class spacecraft)[1] is a type of miniaturized satellite for space research that is made
up of multiples of 10 cm × 10 cm × 10 cm cubic units.[2] CubeSats have a mass of no more than 1.33
kilograms (2.9 lb) per unit, and often use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components for
their electronics and structure. CubeSats are commonly put in orbit by deployers on the International
Space Station, or launched as secondary payloads on a launch vehicle. More than 1200 CubeSats
have been launched as of January 2020. More than 1100 have been successfully deployed in orbit and
more than 80 have been destroyed in launch failures.

In 1999, California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) and Stanford University developed the

CubeSat specifications to promote and develop the skills necessary for the design, manufacture, and
testing of small satellites intended for low Earth orbit (LEO) that perform a number of scientific
research functions and explore new space technologies. Academia accounted for the majority of
CubeSat launches until 2013, when more than half of launches were for non-academic purposes, and
by 2014 most newly deployed CubeSats were for commercial or amateur projects.

Fig: - CubeSats Launch year wise details

Uses typically involve experiments that can be miniaturized or serve purposes such as Earth
observation or amateur radio. CubeSats are employed to demonstrate spacecraft technologies
intended for small satellites or that present questionable feasibility and are unlikely to justify the cost
of a larger satellite. Scientific experiments with unproven underlying theory may also find
themselves aboard CubeSats because their low cost can justify higher risks. Biological research
payloads have been flown on several missions, with more planned. Several missions to
the Moon and Mars are planning to use CubeSats. In May 2018, the two MarCO CubeSats became
the first CubeSats to leave Earth orbit, on their way to Mars alongside the successful InSight mission.