Sector: Earth Observation
Number of satellites: 2
Form factor: 12 U
The VULCAIN mission aims at acquiring multispectral images of selected volcanoes to monitor the important scientific activity. The mission, led by Politecnico di Milano, will fly a formation of two 12U CubeSats positioned on a Very Low Altitude Circular Polar Earth Orbit, which poses technical and scientific challenges. To reach its objectives, VULCAIN embarks a specifically developed miniaturized Thermal Infra-Red (IR) imager and a Visible (VIS) camera, for multispectral imaging, and flies in formation to get a baseline for stereoscopic imaging of the Earth with particular relevance on volcanos and coastal areas. To push forward the border of high-quality science with nano-satellites, VULCAIN will demonstrate in orbit the possibility to reach high relative positioning precision and control, thanks to RF inter-satellite ranging and low thrust control in very perturbed orbits. Laser retro-reflectors will also be embarked in order to achieve high accuracy absolute orbit determination using laser ranging techniques from ground.
Proposing Teams: Politecnico di Milano (Prime), LEONARDO, INGV, LEAFSPACE, T4I, FLYSIGHT