IGOSat: a students’ nanosatellite project

IGOSat is the first educational 3U CubeSat (10x10x30 cm) developed at the Université Paris Cité with the main objective to give university students hands-on experience of a real satellite project.

Developed in collaboration between the Pôle Spatial of the University, the APC and the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), and funded thanks to the LabEx UnivEarthS and the CNES, the IGOSAT nanosatellite is a student project aimaing at measuring the electron density in the high atmosphere and the high energy environment on low-Earth orbit. These objectives are completed with two payloads: a dual band GPS receiver measuring the Total Electronic Content of the ionosphere from the disturbances of the radio signals ; and an innovative high energy detector based on a scintillator read by silicon photomultipliers and a dedicated electronics. The IPGP is in charge of the GPS payload, while the APC is developing the scintillation payload.

A large part of the satellite is designed, integrated and tested by students, supervised by researchers and engineers from the participating laboratories.

So far, more than 300 students have been working on IGOSat. Each year, about 10 to 15 interns (from bachelor to master degree) are working on IGOSat. IGOSat is presently in phase D (satellite manufacturing, integration and tests) and shoulud be ready to fly early 2023.

Project home page: http://igosat.in2p3.fr