On 6 and 7 February, the first workshop of the Nanosats Federation was held at the Observatoire de Paris on the Meudon site. It was an excellent opportunity for 30 of its members to get together, present the progress made by the Federation’s various working groups, report on the progress of their nanosatellite projects and discuss strategic directions in order to highlight the needs of the community. All in all, an encouraging first edition for this young Federation, with new prospects for the short and medium term.
In her capacity as Director of the Federation, Coralie Neiner opened the introductions, firstly recalling the need for the organisation’s existence, before outlining its objectives, how it operates and its medium- and long-term ambitions. She also reviewed the community’s expectations and needs in 2023.
This was followed by a series of presentations by university space centres, nanosatellite project developers and the coordinators of the Federation’s temporary working groups. The Université Paris Cité Space Centre, the Université Paris-Est Créteil Space Campus, and the two space centres, CurieSat of Sorbonne Université and CENSUS of the Université Paris Sciences & Lettres, presented their organisation, operations and current activities, including nanosatellite projects under development.
Presentations of the CosmoCal[1], NOIRE[2], UVSQ-Sat NG[3], IonSat[4], BIRDY[5], Quango and QUDICE[6], Teracube[7], CASSTOR[8], INSPIRE[9] and IGOSat[10] projects then demonstrated the richness, diversity and interest of developing nanosatellites. It was also an opportunity for exchange and feedback between project leaders.
The Federation was also able to present some of its activities via the temporary working groups, which are tasked with responding to specific initiatives. In particular, three coordinators introduced an initial inventory of technology building blocks, off-the-shelf components (COTS) and test facilities, with a view to developing a database that will give federation members an overview of what exists and enable them to share information. The NanosatGrid project coordinator for the pooling and networking of ground-based antennas explained why he was not selected by the Ile-de-France region. New avenues are being explored to compensate for this financial shortfall.
A presentation was also given on the newly created Ile-de-France Space Academy, giving members an overview of its structure and funding. This was followed by a discussion highlighting the Federation’s role in training through research and the pooling of resources, and how best to coordinate the training activities of the Space Academy and the Federation.
The workshop ended with a round table discussion moderated by Claude Catala and featuring Coralie Neiner, Gauthier Hulot and Antoine Miniussi. What emerged from this discussion was a real need to promote a new window at CNES specifically for Newspace, in order to break out of the competition with traditional, larger-scale missions.
[1] Cosmic diffuse background calibration project
[2] Cislunar interferometric observatory project
[3] Climatic variables observation project
[4] Low Earth orbit satellite project
[5] Solar system small bodies study project
[6] Quantum Key distribution (QKD) technology integration projects for space communications
[7] Project to study planetary atmospheres
[8] Project for stellar UV spectropolarimetry
[9] Project to study the Earth’s radiation balance
[10] Project to study the gamma-ray environment