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The device is designed in the form of a 12U CubeSat. The scientists of Samara University are designing the space platform itself and a set of scientific gear; STC makes radar surveillance equipment and a propulsion plant. The developers intend to bring AIST-ST to the series production.
“Currently, together with STC we are working out the design documentation. Till the end of 2023, the engineering model of AIST-ST is to be made where some units and airborne systems will be in the form of mass-dimensional and functional dummies, and some — in the form of actual structural elements, devices, and units. Development testing of solar cell panel deployment system is scheduled for the end of 2023 — early 2024. The program of flight development tests provide for flight tests of a propulsion plant with the first satellite already,” Ivan Tkachenko, Director of the Institute of Aerospace Engineering of Samara University, shared.
The active shelf life of AIST-ST is 2 years, the design altitude of its orbit is from 400 to 450 km. The maximal inclined surveillance height is 500 km, the capture range is 70 km. From the design altitude, a radio locator by STC with a synthesized aperture can provide a resolution capability of about 10 meters in the route mode and at least 2 meters in the detailed mode.
“AIST-ST brings together two important federal project Samara University participate in. Currently, the works on the spacecraft manufacturing are conducted in the framework of the Priority-2030 program, and after the first sample of the satellite is made and the flight development tests start, researchers, postgraduate students, students of the Advanced Aerospace Engineering School of the University will deal with adaptation of the satellite structure to the robotized assembly. It is AIST-ST that will become an object for this technology to be tested, so that pilot production of spacecrafts in the framework of the Advanced Engineering Schools Federal Project could be deployed on the territory of the campus,” Vladimir Bogatyrev, Rector of the Samara University, emphasized.
As Ivan Tkachenko noted, according to the old tradition established in Samara University, aside from the target radar hardware AIST-ST is expected to be equipped with a set of scientific gear, including the modules and sensors for measurement of parameters of the spacecraft’s own atmosphere.
For reference
The satellites designed by Samara University were first set into orbit in 1989. A series of six simplest PION space objects launched in 1989–1992 was followed by two 39 kg AIST satellites of the first series with the scientific equipment that in 2013 became a foundation for the modern satellite constellation of the University.
Then, AIST-2D, a 530 kg spacecraft of Earth remote sensing designed in cooperation with the Progress Rocket-Space Center, followed. Since its launch in 2016, that spacecraft has already shot more than 70 mln sq. kilometers of the Earth surface. And in 2021, the University presented the project of the AIST-3 universal space platform.
Photo by Andrei Saveliev, Volzhskaya Kommuna
