URSA MAIOR (QB50 IT02)

URSA MAIOR [University of Rome "LA SAPIENZA"]

URSA MAIOR (University of Rome la Sapienza Micro Attitude In Orbit testing) is an Italian 3U-CubeSat designed by the University of Rome "LA SAPIENZA" participating in the QB50 project.

The QB50 project, which demonstrates the possibility of launching a network of 50 CubeSats built by Universities Teams all over the world to perform first-class science in the largely unexplored lower thermosphere.

As a payload for QB50, the satellite carries a multineedle Langmuir probe (mNLP) sampling the electron density of the space around it.

Besides the QB50 payload, URSA MAIOR carries the ARTICA deorbit sail, which will be deployed at the end of the mission and the MEMIT MEMS MicroThruster Experiment.

The satellite is one of six QB50 science satellites, which were to be launched on a Dnepr rocket on the QB50-DS flight. When the availability of Dnepr launch vehicle had become doubtful, they were transfered to an Indian PSLV-XL launch.