39438 - VELOX-PII

VELOX-PII is the first Singapore picosatellite to operate in low Earth's orbit. It was developed under the Nanyang Technological University's Undergraduate Satellite Program, which provides an opportunity for students to participate in a multidisciplinary hands-on space project. The objective is to train engineers to support the Singapore space industry. Besides educational objective, VELOX-PII also contributes as a technology demonstration platform and a design validation for NTU future satellite missions such as VELOX-I and VELOX-II. The picosatellite was used to qualify several in-house built hardware and software such as the fault tolerant power system, attitude determination & control algorithms, fine sun sensor, solar panels, etc.

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 degrees C.

Facts in Brief

Launch Date: 2013-11-21
Launch Vehicle: Dnepr
Launch Site: Yasni, Russia
Mass: 1.0 kg