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ISTSat-1: Satellite entirely built at Técnico reaches orbit

The anticipation is palpable – and it’s no wonder. Many people stare intently at the large screen set up in the atrium of the Oeiras campus, at 7.59 p.m., on 9 July, waiting for Ariane 6 Liftoff from Kourou in French Guiana. For many of these people, this is an even more special moment – ISTSat-1, the first Portuguese university nanosatellite entirely built at Técnico, by Técnico researchers and students from the IST NanoSat Lab, is aboard Ariane 6 – and they are now holding their breath until the clock strikes 00:00:00.

And the moment has finally arrived. After igniting the engines and climbing through the atmosphere, the tension was managed in stages as the flight director’s voice announced “trajectoire nominale!” every 20 seconds. – the confirmation that everything was going according to plan. At the Oeiras campus, there were several waves of applause as the vehicle approached the 580-kilometre mark, the altitude at which ISTSat-1 will orbit the planet. Once the orbit has been established, the activity and data collected by the satellite will be monitored by the Técnico team at the ground station in Oeiras. The main purpose of this equipment is to monitor the presence of aircraft in remote areas of the planet that are difficult to detect from the surface.

An event in anticipation of the Ariane 6 first liftoff took place in the afternoon, attended by Fernando Alexandre, Portuguese Minister of Education, Science and Innovation, Luís Ferreira, Rector of Universidade de Lisboa, Rogério Colaço, President of Técnico, José Santos-Victor, President of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Isaltino Morais, mayor of Oeiras, members of the teams involved in building the nanosatellite and other curious participants.

Choosing from 13 competing universities that presented their prototypes to travel aboard Ariane 6, the ESA’s education department selected Técnico and five other higher education institutions to join the ‘Fly Your Sattelite!’ programme (at the final launch, along with Técnico, only the Polytechnic University of Catalonia put a satellite aboard). The initiative aimed to support students in building, testing and launching their satellites, providing technical support, test infrastructures and funding for the launch in French Guiana. With this incentive, the ISTSat-1 (which had been underway since 2008) was given a new lease of life, culminating in this launch, led by the DEEC professors and researchers Moisés Piedade (Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores – Investigação e Desenvolvimento) and Rui Rocha (Instituto de Telecomunicações), the latter accompanying the process on site.

The IST NanoSat Lab project had the financial support of Técnico, Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores, Investigação e Desenvolvimento (INESC-ID), Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT) and the Mechanical Engineering Institute (IDMEC). A team of researchers at the Institute for Systems and Robotics (ISR-Lisboa) and several companies linked to the sector also participated in the project.

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