CubETH

CubETH [ETH Zürich]

The Swiss CubETH is a cooperative CubeSat project of ETH Zürich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich), the SSC (Swiss Space Center) at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, several universities of Applied Sciences, and Swiss companies.

The nanosatellite measures 10 cm × 10 cm cm × 10 cm and follows the 1U CubeSat form factor. CubETH carries several low-cost single-frequency GNSS receivers of the type u-blox NEO-7N. The satellite is based on the earlier SwissCube.

In the cooperative project, SSC is responsible for the satellite and ETH-GGL is responsible for the scientific payload.

The scientific goals of the project are:

• precise orbit determination (for a cube satellite based on single-frequency GNSS, post processing and real-time)
• satellite attitude determination (proof of concept for a cube satellite based on single-frequency GNSS, post processing and real-time)
• GNSS comparison and combination (with first GNSS receiver in space tracking GPS, GLONASS, QZSS, and ready for Galileo and Beidou)
• experimental measurements (radio occultations, reflectometry, air density estimation during re-entry phase only)

CubETH was planned to be launched piggy-back in late 2015, but has been delayed. A launch vehicle has not yet been selected.