1 st IAA Conference on University Satellites Missions and 1 st IAA Cubesat Winter Workshop in Europe Roma (Italy), January 24 29,2011 The First IAA Conference on University Satellites Missions and the First IAA Cubesat Winter Workshop in Europe were held in Roma, on January 24 29, 2011 at the Villa Spada Centro Logistico della Guardia di Finanza, Roma. The conference and the workshop gathered 253 participants from 25 countries in 14 technical sessions (7 for the Conference and 7 for the Cubesat Workshop). 93 papers were presented orally while 14 posters were displayed. The last day, Saturday 29th, was dedicated to high school students and to the visit of the Centro Ricerche Progetto San Marco and of the laboratories of the Scuola di Ingegneria Aerospaziale of Sapienza University of Rome. Conference and Workshop participants
The low cost of developing and launching small university satellites, and in particular CubeSats, opened the possibility to bring them as educational tools into the classrooms of many universities and even of some high schools. Unlike larger projects, the short development time of typically two years from initial design to launch is very suitable with the duration of Master and PhD theses. As educational hands on projects, CubeSats are ideal and it is no surprise that the CubeSat community is rapidly growing. The CubeSat standard was defined in 1999 by Stanford University and California Polytechnic State University. Now, only 10 years later, about 200 CubeSats have already been launched worldwide or are under development. However, also industry is getting involved in launching micro, pico satellites and CubeSats for technological applications, in developing and selling CubeSat subsystems and deployers and in offering launch services. Space agencies and other institutions are using them for biological, microgravity and re entry research. A new market segment is emerging. A number of CubeSats can be equipped with common instruments and launched, deployed and operated together as a distributed sensor network for atmospheric or space weather research, for Earth environment monitoring or ship identification and tracking at very low cost. Each year, numerous conferences, including Cubesat sessions, are organized all over the world. However, currently there are only two workshops dedicated to CubeSats held every year on a regular basis. One is in April in San Luis Obispo, California and the other in August in Logan, Utah. They represent the spring and the summer session of the CUBESAT Workshop. Many participants expressed their interest in having an annual workshop also in Europe to bring the European CubeSat community together on a regular basis for further information exchange and fostering a network of cooperating institutions in this area. The Education Office of the European Space Agency (ESA) organized a Vega Maiden Flight CubeSat Workshop on 22 24 January 2008 at ESTEC in the Netherlands. The Workshop was the first of its kind at European level and gathered almost all of the European CubeSat teams together for the first time. A year later, on 20 22 January 2009, the Second European CubeSat Workshop was organised by ESA s Education Office at ESTEC. There is a need of continuing this series of European CubeSat conferences. This 1 st IAA Conference on University Satellites Missions and the 1 st IAA CubeSat Winter Workshop in Europe held in Rome has continued this series and the European CubeSat Symposium (January 30 th February 1 st 2012) in Brussels will follow next year. The conferences in Rome and Brussels and future conferences in this series will be held at the end of January each year and will be jointly organized by the University of Rome, ESA s Education Office and the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics. It was a great honour to host in Rome this important event. At the same time the Scuola di Ingegneria Aerospaziale of Rome was proud to recall that the activity on small satellite design, manufacture and integration involving Professors and Researchers of the Scuola di Ingegneria Aerospaziale started in 1961 with the well known San Marco Project. This was a joint program of the University of Rome and NASA, invaluably supported by the Italian Air Force and the National Research Council. It was developed thanks to the initiative, farsightedness and perseverance of Professor Luigi Broglio. He had been Dean of the Scuola di Ingegneria Aerospaziale for 35 years, and he is recognised as the founder of space activities in Italy. We dedicated this Conference and this Workshop to his memory on the occasion of two anniversaries: one century since his birth, and ten years from his passing.
The tradition in university satellites manufacturing and launching at the Scuola di Ingegneria Aerospaziale of Rome has been followed since 1990, si parva licet componere magnis (if you can compare small to the great things) by the Gruppo di Astrodinamica GAUSS with the UNISAT program. QUO VADIS, CUBESAT? has been proposed as the theme of the Conference. The main topics were related to the Innovative aspects on the field related to science and engineering for the university nano, pico and fempto satellites. The Conference provided to the international space community a forum for the presentation and the discussion of the new perspective for university satellites missions. During the Conference two days were completely dedicated to Cubesat community. Academic, Military and Political Authorities during the opening ceremony The welcome addresses were given by the Academic, Military and Political Authorities: Enrico SAGGESE President of Italian Space Agency (ASI), Cristiano BONELLI President of Quarto Municipio of the Comune di Roma, Col. Carmine GIORDANO Head of Centro Logistico della Guardia di Finanza, Carlo ULIVIERI Director of Centro Ricerche Progetto San Marco, Paolo TEOFILATTO representative of Scuola di Ingegneria Aerospaziale of Sapienza University of Rome.
President of Italian Space Agency (ASI) Enrico SAGGESE during the opening ceremony The General Secretary of IAA, Dr. Jean Michel CONTANT, gave the opening lecture on The International Academy of Astronautics and the new generations and highlighted the major contributions to space development and missions since the beginning of space age. Dr. Jean Michel CONTANT, General Secretary of IAA At the end of the lecture Dr. CONTANT received a copy of the foundation document of the Sapienza University of Roma ( Bolla di fondazione dello Studium Urbis emanata da Papa Bonifacio VIII, in Roma, 20 aprile 1303 ) from Prof. Filippo GRAZIANI, Sapienza Senior Professor, former dean of the Scuola di Ingegneria Aerospaziale and Conference Chairman. During the LUIGI BROGLIO MEMORIAL SESSION professor Ugo PONZI illustrated the figure and the professional life focusing on some of the many and great activities of Prof. Broglio. The birth of San Marco Project, the originality of the satellite mission, the description of the Balance (the Broglio drag balance ) experiment and the results achieved from the atmospheric density
measurements were presented. Nazzareno CARDINALI, General of Italian Air Force, gave an intersting view of the military career of Luigi Broglio and the journalist Giorgio DI BERNARDO NICOLAI reported some aspects of professor Broglio s life. Luigi Broglio Memorial Session: Prof U. Ponzi describes Broglio Drag balance Nazzareno CARDINALI, General of Italian Air Force, presents Luigi Broglio s military career and the journalist Giorgio DI BERNARDO NICOLAI reports some aspects of the life of professor Broglio. The keynote addresses were presented by the chairmen at the beginning of each technical sessions. According the order of the technical sessions, the keynote lecturers were: Carlo ULIVIERI, Rainer SANDAU, David M. KLUMPAR, Craig UNDERWOOD, Vladislav SOLOVEY, Heiner KLINKRAD, Piero GALEONE, Benjamin K. MALPHRUS, Jean MUYLAERT, Vladimir ANDREEV, Jordi PUIG SUARL, Fernando AGUADO, Maurizio DE RENZI, Jennifer CARTER MALPHRUS.
Session I: Conference Hall In a special IAA Mebership ceremony, during the gala dinner, Dr. Francesco TORCHIA, Colonel of the Italian Air Force, received the International Academy of Astronautics Corresponding Member Certificate from the General Secretary of the International Academy of Astronautics Dr. Jean Michel CONTANT. Dr. Francesco TORCHIA, Colonel of the Italian Air Force, receives the International Academy of Astronautics Corresponding Member Certificate.
During the Gala Dinner, all the session conference chairmen received a small souvenir of Rome from the conference chairman Prof. Filippo Graziani. Mr. Vladislav Solovey (ISC Kosmotras) and Prof Jordi Puig Suarl (CalPoly) receive their presents Dr. Heiner Klinkrad (ESA) and Prof David M. Klumpar (Montana University) receive their presents An exhibition area was organized in order to allow to the universities and companies to show their products and to discuss about ideas and new project. In particular ISIS Innovative Solutions In Space, Clyde Space, Politecnico di Torino, GAUSS group have showed their CubeSat and Pico satellites solutions. A special desk was reserved to the Ulisse Project.
GAUSS group and its international partners at GAUSS Exhibition Desk On Friday January 28 th during the keynote The effective cooperation between Kosmotras and University: UNISAT Program Mr Vladimir Andreev, from ISC Kosmotras gave a special tribute to prof. Graziani and to his Unisat program. Since early nineties Unisat program allows to University of Roma students to be involved in a real space project. Thanks to this Graziani s idea in the last 10 years 4 microsatellites have been designed, manufactured and launched by GAUSS members. Prof Graziani receives Dnepr small scale model from Mr Andreev. The last day, Saturday January 29 th, was dedicated to high school students and to the visit of the Centro Ricerche Progetto San Marco and of the laboratories of the Scuola di Ingegneria Aerospaziale of Sapienza University of Rome.
About 80 students coming from 5 italian high schools participated in the Half a day meeting. High School Students attend the Saturday Session A keynote about Development of a Space Science Curriculum for High School Students Sponsored by the Kentucky Space Program was presented to the students by Prof. Jennifer Carter Malphrus. Prof. Jennifer Carter Malphrus during her keynote The students showed a great interest in the lectures program of the course Astronautics in the class rooms organized by Scuola di Ingegneria Aerospaziale since 2005, within the project Alere Flammam. It involves Italian high school student in a hands on space activity and it was presented by Chantal Cappelletti.
Chantal Cappelletti explaining Alere Flammam project. A technical visit to the Centro Ricerche Progetto San Marco was the occasion to get in touch with the San Marco Satellites Models, the Scout Launch Vehicle given by NASA, the solar simulator and the models of the San Marco platforms (located in the Indian Ocean near Malindi, Kenya). The participants visited the GAUSS laboratory and could take a look to the mock up of the four Unisat microsatellites built by the students and launched by Dnepr Launch Vehicle, the ground station and the telescopes for the space debris detection. This event concluded the first IAA Conference on University Satellites Missions and the first IAA Cubesat Winter Workshop in Europe with the perspective to meet again next year in Brussels. Dr Piero Galeone (ESA), Prof.Filippo Graziani and Prof. Paolo Teofilatto (School of Aerospace Engineering) during the visit to the Centro Ricerche Progetto San Marco
Students and professors watching the Scout Launch Vehicle The Conference and the Workshop received the sponsorship from many institutions. The principal sponsor was the International Academy of Astronautics. Other sponsors were: Italian Space Agency (ASI), ESA Education Office, Italian Air Force (AMI), Comune di Roma and Quarto Municipio, Guardia di Finanza (which hosted this event at Villa Spada), FILAS SpA, Banca di Credito Cooperativo di Roma (BCC Roma), Kosmotras ISC, Morehead State University (MSU), von Karman Institute for Flluid Dynamics (VKI), AeroSekur srl, SELEX Communications, Thales Alenia Space, G&A srl, DMA srl, APAAS Journal, Centro Ricerche Progetto San Marco (CRPSM). Sponsors logos Prof. Lyudmila KUZMINA of Kazan Aviation Institute (Kazan, Russia) offered to publish the Conference Proceedings on a special issue of the International Russian American Scientific Journal on the Actual Problems of aviation and aerospace systems (APAAS) and Adarsh Deepak invited to publish selected papers on the Journal of Small Satellites (JoSS).
The Conference and the Workshop have been organized by the GAUSS Group and in particular by the GAUSS coordinator Chantal CAPPELLETTI together with Simone BATTISTINI, Chiara MASSIMIANI, Riccardo DI LAURO, Riccardo DI ROBERTO, Luigi RIDOLFI, Giuseppe MARTINOTTI, Fabrizio BERTINI, Roberto CICA, Stefano SCUTTI, Martina CARNIO, Giacomo MARINI, Roberta REMIDDI, Attilio MARCANIO, Alan D ONOFRIO. All of them provided their hard and indefatigable work, always done with enthusiasm and generosity as well as with the contribution of their creative and new ideas. GAUSS group