ANUSAT 2 (QB50 IN01)

ANUSAT 2 [Anna University]

ANUSAT 2 is a 2U-CubeSat for technology development and upper atmosphere science. It is developed and built at Anna University.

The primary payload of ANUSAT is FIPEX provided by the QB50 group. The secondary payload carries out Ionospheric Tomography experiments. It also carries the GAMANET Communication system as a secondary communication system.

It is a part of the QB50 constellation to gather science data in the upper layers of the troposphere in the altitude range from 350 km down to 200 km. The QB50 project, which demonstrates the possibility of launching a network of 50 CubeSats built by Universities Teams all over the world to perform first-class science in the largely unexplored lower thermosphere.

It carries the FIPEX (Flux-Φ-Probe Experiment) of TU Dresden as the primary payload for the QB50 project, which is able to distinguish and measure the time-resolved behaviour of atomic and molecular oxygen as a key parameter of the lower thermosphere.

The satellite will be launched with the bulk of the QB50 constellation to the ISS in 2017, from where they will be deployed. The in-orbit lifetime of ANUSAT 2 is about 3 months, from deployment to de-orbit.