The European Space Agency (ESA) will launch the new Ariane 6 rocket on Tuesday, which will make its maiden flight carrying on board a Portuguese nanosatellite, built by students and professors from Instituto Superior Tí ©technician (IST).
The launch of the European space base in Kourou, French Guiana, is scheduled for between 19:00 and 23:00 (Lisbon time).
The Santa Maria teleport, in the Azores, operated by Thales Edisoft Portugal, will be the first station to provide data from the rocket, the company told Lusa, which “will contribute to the establishment of communication ions during a critical phase of the mission”.
According to Thales Edisoft Portugal, the inaugural launch of Ariane 6 “marks the return of European operational capacity to access space”.
On board the rocket will be ISTSat-1, the first nanosatellite designed by a Portuguese university institution.
ISTSat-1 will be used to test a new decoder of messages sent by aircraft that will allow their detection in remote areas and assess the feasibility of using nanosatellites to receive signals about the state of aircraft, such as speed and altitude, for air safety purposes.
“The Técnico team will be receiving information from the satellite at the ground station at the Oeiras hub and checking, by comparing the data received with reference data, whether the satellite complies with the expected functions and performs as expected”, stated IST in previous clarifications to Lusa.
ISTSat-1 will be positioned 580 kilometers from Earth, above the International Space Station, the astronauts’ “home” and laboratory, and send the first data approximately a month after the start of operations .
The nanosatellite, which cost around 270 thousand euros, will remain in orbit for between five and 15 years before re-entering the atmosphere.
“It’s a great multidisciplinary project to help train good engineering professionals”, highlighted, quoted by IST, professor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Rui Rocha, who coordinated the work.
Along with ISTSat-1, other satellites and scientific equipment from foreign institutions, companies and space agencies will go.
The Ariane 6, whose inaugural flight took place four years later and cost 4.5 billion euros, will succeed the Ariane 5, which made its last flight in July 2023.
ESA, of which Portugal has been a Member State since 2000, plans a second launch, this time commercial, of the new range of European rockets by the end of the year. For the following two years, 14 flights are scheduled.
It is with this rocket that ESA intends to send the Plato space probe in 2026, which will “photograph” thousands of stars and search for planets similar to Earth. The mission has Portuguese scientific participation, from the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences.
