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Master Thesis - OUFTI-1

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1.2 <strong>OUFTI</strong>-1 project<br />

1.2.1 Genesis<br />

<strong>OUFTI</strong>-1, standing for "Orbital Utility For Telecommunication Innovation ", is the rst<br />

nanosatellite developed by the University of Liège (ULg) as well as the rst one which was<br />

ever developed in Belgium. This name, which is a typical expression from the city of Liège<br />

showing surprise or amazement, was chosen to point up the origin of the satellite.<br />

The project started in 2007 when Mr. Luc HALBACH, an engineer of Spacebel, suggests<br />

the idea of testing a new amateur radio digital technology in space on board a CubeSat: the<br />

D-STAR protocol. This idea has catched the attention of several academic members from<br />

ULg and, within a few weeks, a team was created to work on the project: <strong>OUFTI</strong>-1 was<br />

born. This team includes two students from ULg, Stefania GALLI and Jonathan PISANE,<br />

who realized the mission design of <strong>OUFTI</strong>-1 [4] and the design and implementation of the<br />

rst telecommunication elements of <strong>OUFTI</strong>-1 [5] respectively. Last year, it was a great<br />

team composed of 13 students coming from three dierent schools (University of Liège,<br />

Gramme Institute and ISIL Institute), who developed the project to the state at which<br />

this thesis starts (references [6] to [18]).<br />

1.2.2 The launch opportunity<br />

<strong>OUFTI</strong>-1 will be launched on board the new european launcher: Vega (shown in Figure<br />

1.3) for free, which is an incredible opportunity. This launcher was developed by Arianespace<br />

jointly to the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and European Space Agency (ESA). Further<br />

detail can be found in reference [19]. The main payload of the Vega Maiden Flight is the<br />

LARES system (an articial satellite provided by ASI with a spherical body and covered<br />

by corner cube reectors). The secondary payloads includes 9 CubeSats, plus the satellite<br />

ALMASat-1 from the University of Bologna.<br />

Figure 1.3: The new European launcher: Vega<br />

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