Sector: Telecommunications/Space Sustainability

Number of satellites: 3

Form factor: 0.3 U

PiCo-IoT is a 0.3 U CubeSat mission which’s objective is the feasibility study and the design of key elements of a constellation for the retrieval of Internet of Things (IoT) data packets from all over the world. The constellation will be composed by three pico-satellites designed to be deployed rapidly and effectively which will validate: i) IoT data retrieval capacity from all over the globe; ii) the deployment and formation of a swarm constellation with a single launch, this is possible thanks to a control strategy based on relative aerodynamic drag differences attained through the 3-axis attitude control of the satellite; iii) the rapid deorbiting at end of mission, fully respecting the “non-debris proliferation” guidelines.  PiCo-IoT represents the will to realize the first building-block of a scalable infrastructure which will allow the expansion of the current opportunities for developing IoT connectivity in Europe and the rest of world on one hand, and to consciously face the problems related to space debris proliferation, potentially associated with the launch of hundreds of satellites for such constellations, on the other.

Proposing team: Apogeo Space (Prime), Aviosonic, Cover Sistemi, NPC Spacemind