Bird (2U) (Taka)

Bird are a small technological CubeSat (1U) built by Kyushu Institute of Technology (Kyutech) as the Joint Global Multi-Nation Birds Satellite project, which is a cross-border interdisciplinary satellite project for non-space faring countries supported by Japan.

Participating countries for the Bird 1 mission are; Japan (Toki, BirdJ), Ghana (GhanaSat 1, Bird G), Mongolia (Mazaalai, Bird M), Nigeria (Nigeria EduSat 1, Bird N) and Bangladesh (BRAC Onnesha, Bird B). During the two years project, students shall design, develop and operate five units of identical 1U CubeSats belonging to the five participating countries and operating from 7 ground stations (operation is done at seven ground stations; the five participating countries including Thailand and Taiwan) to form for the first time in the world a constellation of five CubeSats operated in seven networked ground stations. 15 students from six of the seven participating countries who belong to Graduate school of Engineering of the Kyushu Institute of Technology and enrolled as a Master or Doctoral degree students in Space Engineering International Course are executing this project with the support of faculty members. This project hopes to provide great leverage to students from developing nations for hands on satellite project.

A second round, BIRDS-2, flew in 2018 with Philippines (Maya, Bird PHL), Bhutan (Bhutan 1, Bird BTN) and Malaysia (UiTMSAT 1, Bird MYS) participating.

A third batch, BIRDS-3, contained satellites from Nepal (NepaliSat 1, Bird NPL), Sri Lanka (Raavana 1, Bird LKA) and Japan (Uguisu, Bird JPN).

A fourth batch, BIRDS-4, consisted of satellites from Philippines (Maya 2, Bird PHL2), Paraguay (Guaranisat-1, Bird xxx) and Japan (Tsuru, Bird JPN2).

The fifth batch, BIRDS-5, consists of satellites from Uganda (PearlAfricaSat 1), Zimbabwe (ZimSat 1), and Japan (Taka).