SUSat (QB50 AU01)

SUSat [University of Adelaide]

SUSat (University of Adelaide Satellite) is a 2U-CubeSat for technology development and upper atmosphere science. It is developed and built at the University of Adelaide.

The purpose of this CubeSat includes upper atmosphere science, radio communication experiments, technology demonstrator, education, training and outreach.

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 a Science Unit (SU) named INMS (Ion/Neutral Mass Spectrometer) for sampling of low mass ionized and neutral particles in lower thermosphere, such as O, O₂, and N₂.

The satellite was launched with the bulk of the QB50 constellation to the ISS in 2017, from where the satellite was deployed on 25 May 2017, but does not appear to work.. The in-orbit lifetime of SUSat is about 3 months, from deployment to de-orbit.