Low-cost ground segment for Russian Academia-University science space missions

Abstract

The evident tendency is the rapid growth the number of microsatellites, and it's is fully explained by their low cost, the speed of preparation and relative simplicity of their realization. Quite often such spacecrafts are used in the educational purposes. At the same time the result of analysis shows that such satellites can also solve important fundamental scientific problems in addition to their educational purposes. But in this case it requires solving a number of additional tasks. First of all it is required to ensure comparatively high speed of the downlink telemetry for necessity of receiving of meaningful scientific results. That in turn is demanded the appropriate solutions in the on-board and ground segments of the mission. However it's necessary to save the main advantages of the microsatellites: low-cost of development, implementation and operations as well as short time of development. As an example, in the paper is considered the ground segment for Russian Academia-University microsatellite "Chibis-M" which is the first from series of the microsatellites "Chibis" used for solving different fundamental problems. The technical and methodical solutions, prospects for further development are discussed in the article. © 2012 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.