OPUSAT Bound for Space

OPUSAT is a nano satellite designed and created by an OPU student team consisting of about 20 undergraduates and graduates at the Small Spacecraft Systems Research Center (SSSRC).

OPUSAT has been selected as one of seven university student-produced satellites that will be on board the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) H2A rocket to be launched in the summer of 2013. Since the project start, the student members have engaged in each design, parts purchase and production phase of the ten-centimeter square, one kilogram OPUSAT satellite.

Nano satellites are currently being developed by many universities and companies, and the missions of these satellites have become increasingly diverse and advanced in recent years. Equipped with a lithium ion capacitor (LIC), magnet torquers, and solar paddles, OPUSAT is designed to verify the LIC’s space environment tolerance capabilities, to generate large amounts of electrical power and to realize a highly-efficient storage technology using Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT).

“It’s not always easy to engage in the development of OPUSAT and do my study at the same time. But the successful development of power sources for nano satellites is industrially meaningful, and I believe we can make it,” says Masashi Yanagida, an undergraduate member at SSSRC.

Last September in Nevada, U.S.A., the project team successfully executed a test launch of OPUSAT (at the first development phase) for operational checks of morse code output, the development of paddles and experiments in LIC performance. 

“We can face challenges and difficulties because we have dreams. No other difficulties are nearly as exciting as being able to develop and launch nano satellites we can be proud to show to the world. I hope what we do will bring the world a little change for the better,” says Yohsuke Nambu, Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Engineering responsible for the OPUSAT project.

OPUSAT is scheduled to be completed by March 2013. It will orbit around the earth for up to one year, and will be remotely controlled from the control room on the OPU campus when passing above Osaka.