After two years in orbit, the ISTSat-1 remains fully operational and is now expecting company. Two missions are being prepared by IST NanoSatLab, in which INESC-ID participates, and set to join the first Portuguese university nanosatellite, with one of them scheduled to fly as early as this year.

Argus, a pair of CubeSats developed jointly by IST NanoSatLab and Carnegie Melon University (CMU), will employ innovative techniques to use on-board AI algorithms to determine the position and orientation of satellites in orbit. The mission is expected to launch aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-18 this October.

The second mission, 5G Nanosatellite, is being developed by IST NanoSatLab, Altice Labs and the University of Luxembourg. Planned for completion in 2029, it aims to establish a direct communication link between a low-Earth orbit satellite and the terrestrial 5G network.

The ISTSat-1itself was launched on 9 July 2024, on ESA’s Ariane 6 Flight, with the goal of testing its ability to detect aircrafts in remote areas. The project and IST NanoSatLab brought together INESC-ID, Instituto Superior Técnico, the Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT), the Mechanical Engineering Institute (idMEC) and the Institute for Systems and Robotics (ISR-Lisboa).

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ISTSat-1’s first anniversary here

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Image: © Instituto Superior Técnico