Experiment

Three CubeSats successfully deployed from "Kibo" as part of BIRDS Project!

At 18:45 of August 10, 2018, three CubeSats, designed by people from the Kingdom of Bhutan, the Philippines and Malaysia, were deployed from the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) "Kibo."

Three CubeSat being deployed from Kibo (Credit： JAXA/NASA)

(1) Deployed CubeSats

BHUTAN-1, MAYA-1 and UiTMSAT-1, All 1U CubeSats (Size: 10cm×10cm×10cm)

These CubeSats have been designed and developed as part of the BIRDS-2 Project, an international interdisciplinary satellite deployment project launched by Kyushu Institute of Technology which involves developing countries in space technologies. This project will last about two years. Students from Bhutan, the Philippines and Malaysia also have taken an initiative to design, assemble and test three ultra-small cubic satellites of 10cm×10cm×10cm ("CubeSats") with the help of Japanese students to learn a complete series of satellite deploying process and form an international human network of cooperation for implementing immature space programs. Through this project, Bhutan was able to deploy its first satellite.

(2) Missions (common to the three countries)

1. Taking pictures of the Earth with onboard cameras
2. Demonstration of data relay techniques
3. Exchange of messages by amateur radio stations
4. Detection of abnormalities caused by space radiation
5. Demonstration of COTS GPSreciever
6. Observation of the Earth's magnetic field
7. Verification of ground station networks on amateur radio frequency bands

At the Tsukuba Space Center, the Vice Minister of the Department of Science and Technology of the Republic of the Philippines, the ambassador of the Kingdom of Bhutan, the President of MARA University of Technology of Malaysia, and officials of the Japanese Government witnessed the deployment of the three CubeSats.

Officials of the countries concerned applauding the successful deployment of CubeSats
(Credit： JAXA)

The newly-deployed satellites have been named "BHUTAN-1" (Bhutan), "MAYA-1" (Philippines) and "UiTMSAT-1" (Malaysia).

JEM Small Satellite Orbital Deployer (J-SSOD) and the three CubeSats
(Credit： JAXA)

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*All times are Japan Standard Time (JST)