Polish version
Successful launch of the Polish satellite PW-Sat
On the 13th of February 2012 at 11:00, the Vega rocket of the European Space Agency was launched from the Europe’s Spaceport in the vicinity of Kourou in French Guiana.
Aboard Vega there were nine satellites: ASI’s LARES (Italy), ALMASat-1 (Italy), e-St@r (Italy), Goliat (Romania), MaSat-1 (Hungary), Robusta (France), UniCubeSat GG (Italy), Xatcobeo (Spain) and PW-Sat. One hour after the launch all satellites were successfully separated.
PW-Sat is the first Polish satellite. Its creation was initiated by students of Warsaw University of Technology from the Students’ Space Association SKA and the Student Space Engineering Scientific Group. The final construction work was realized in cooperation with the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
The project started in 2005 when a group of students decided to take up an extraordinary challenge – to design and build a complete satellite from scratch. It was decided that the satellite would be of CubeSat type and its mission would test the method of deorbitation and innovative solar panels. General guidelines were created and it was established that the typical satellite of CubeSat class should be a cube of the dimensions 100x100x113mm and mass not exceeding 1330g (PW-Sat is lighter – it weighs 1004g). Satellites of this size are called picosatellites. Both during their launch and their operation on the orbit, no elements may be separated. Any type of pyrotechnics is also forbidden (CubeSats do not have maneuver propulsion) and so is the use of hazardous materials. More about the structure on http://www.pw-sat.pl
As confirmed by students from the Students’ Space Association, contact with the satellite has been successfully established and everything is working correctly. After a month on the orbit, Pw-Sat will unfold its tail-like structure in order to brake. Then the main mission of the satellite will begin – deorbitation. The satellite decelerates, and as a result descends and enters the atmosphere, where it is burnt. If Pw-Sat did not have its tail, it would stay on the orbit for about 4 years – and now its time on the orbit is only one year. Thanks to the invention, the amount of “space debris”, which is a threat to other objects in space, is diminished.
www.esa.int - ESA’s new Vega launcher scores success on maiden flight
youtube.com - Launch Replay: Vega qualification flight
PW-Sat, fot. Pawel Sanczyk
