Second European CubeSat Workshop

Following on from the successful 'Vega Maiden Flight CubeSat Workshop' held at ESA/ESTEC in January 2008, which was the first CubeSat workshop to be held at European-level, the ESA Education Office is pleased to announce the Second European CubeSat Workshop, one year later as planned.

This Second European CubeSat Workshop will take place in ESA / ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands on 20-22 January 2009.

Since the first workshop, the ESA Education Office in the
Directorate of Legal Affairs and External Relations in con-
junction with the Directorate of Launchers has selected nine
CubeSats (plus two backups) from European universities for
launch on the maiden flight of the Vega launcher, now scheduled for November 2009.

The nine CubeSats will be deployed from three different deployment systems mounted on the support structure of the main payload, LARES (LAser RElativity Satellite), into an orbit of 350 km by 1450 km at an inclination of 71 degrees.

The launch opportunity is offered by ESA to the selected CubeSats free of charge, and recognises the growing importance of the CubeSat as a powerful hands-on space education tool. It is intended as a first step to boost student hands-on development of CubeSats in Europe, thus providing a suitable and qualified space workforce for the future in complement with other education project activities.

The ESA Education Office solicits abstracts to be submitted for oral or poster presentation from both European and non-European participants.

The amateur radio based CubeSat Ground Segment and Operations (GENSO network) along with new ground station technologies and operational methods/techniques/software are planned for discussion.