VELOX-P Pico-satellite

STATUS

The satellite team has completed the development of two flight models (VELOX-PI and VELOX-PII) in August 2012. After a launch delay, VELOX-PII was successfully lifted off on board Russia’s RS-20B rocket (Dnepr) at 3:10pm, Singapore time (7:10am Co-ordinated Universal Time, UTC) on Thursday, 21 November 2013. In the first ground pass at 22:41pm Singapore time, the satellite team has successfully established contact to the satellite. In the second pass at 00:18am on 22 November 2013, the team has successfully communicated to the satellite and downloaded the house-keeping data. The information indicates that the satellite’s battery is fully charged and the temperature of the satellite is in the range of 20-40 degree C.

The satellite has been performing well in space since the initial ground contact. After the LEOP (launch and early operation), the VELOX satellite team has performed various experiments on the satellite. Initial experiment includes downloading the whole orbit data to study the various satellite status. The satellite is designed to store its operating status of various subsystems right from the very first orbit and the ground station can command the satellite to download any orbital data subjected to the downlink bandwidth. Attitude control and navigation experiments have also been conducted to evaluate the performance of the sun sensor in space as well as the orbit propagator accuracy. The satellite is also capable of performing “batteryless” operation when the battery degraded, i.e. the satellite can operate by using only the solar energy. The satellite has been operating in space for more than 5 months and the hardware of the satellite remains healthy.