PROMETHEUS-1: New Portuguese satellite launched into space with Técnico’s participation
The University of Minho’s satellite managed communications with the Earth through the ground station located at Técnico’s Oeiras campus.
After the launch of the first Portuguese university nano-satellite (ISTSat-1, built entirely by its researchers and students), Instituto Superior Técnico is once again involved in the launch of another satellite – the University of Minho’s PROMETHEUS-1. Launched from the Vanderberg spaceport in California on 14 January (aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket), the space object will collect useful data from an orbit at an altitude of 500 kilometres.
The satellite is a cube with a five-centimetre edge and weighs 250 grams. It contains battery management and orientation systems, microcontrollers and a camera similar to that of a cell phone to capture images.
During the launch, communications were managed from a ground station at Oeiras campus, developed by the NanoSat Lab (an initiative involving various research units at Técnico, with the support of several companies operating in the aerospace industry). As a result of the experience gained from ISTSat-1, Técnico played an important role in supporting the licensing of communications.
‘The experience gained from ISTSat-1 was crucial for the project – as there are few Portuguese assets in space, this is still a very early and extremely time-consuming process’ said Rodrigo Ventura, a professor at Técnico and a researcher at the Institute for Systems and Robotics (ISR Lisboa). The Técnico staff involved in the PROMETHEUS project also include Rui Rocha, a professor at Técnico and a researcher at Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT), and a student who completed his master’s thesis in Electronics Engineering as part of this process. The consortium was led by Alexandre Ferreira da Silva, a professor at the University of Minho’s School of Engineering.
The space object was developed under the CMU Portugal Program, a partnership between Técnico, Carnegie Mellon University (USA) and the University of Minho, among other higher education institutions, funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology.