Maya-1, a 1U or 1.75-inches height cube satellite developed by Filipino engineers in Japan, will be deployed into orbit from the International Space Station (ISS) on August 10, along with two other identical CubeSats from Bhutan and Malaysia.
The CubeSat will be deployed through the Japanese Experimental Module Small Satellite Orbital Deployer in the “Kibo” module—the same module used to deploy Diwata-1 more than two years ago.
Maya-1, along with Bhutan-1 of Bhutan and UiTMSAT-1 of Malaysia, are produced under the auspices of the second generation of the Joint Global Multi-Nation BIRDS Satellite Project, or simply the BIRDS-2 Project, of the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan.
Among the missions of Maya-1 is the demonstration of the Store and Forward (S&F) System for 1U cubesats.
The S&F is a remote data-collection system wherein a satellite collects data from remote ground segments within its footprint, store it and forward it to any member ground station.
The S&F system provides a mechanism to enable collection of useful data from remote locations that normally do not have access to regular communications infrastructure.
Some of the possible applications of the S&F system include collecting data that can be used to generate early warnings for landslides and flash-floods, complementing systems for monitoring health conditions of people in remote areas, and systems for tracking endangered species and fish vessels.
Within a few days after release, the global network of 10 amateur ground stations (GS) of the BIRDS program will confirm communication with the three CubeSats.
The 10 GS are in the Philippines, Japan, Malaysia, Bhutan, Mongolia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Ghana, Taiwan and Thailand.
According to Joven Javier of the Advanced Science and Technology Institute of the one of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-Asti) and one of the Filipino engineers who worked on Maya-1, focusing on the first contact with the CubeSat and confirming its operation is a main priority.
“Right after the release, we will check which ground station will be the first to acquire the signal from the CubeSats, then we will contact them live from there,” Javier said in Filipino.
Several Filipino officials from the DOST and the University of the Philippines will be at the Tsukuba Space Center of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to witness the release.
The CubeSats will follow the ISS orbit at an altitude of approximately 400 kilometers.
The CubeSats are expected to remain in orbit for about a year.
Maya-1 is expected to pass over or near the Philippines an average of three to four times in a day, with each pass lasting around eight minutes. During these passes, the ground station, located at the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute in the University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD), will be attempting to upload commands and download data from Maya-1 as part of its scientific mission.
Maya-1 was built under the Development of the Philippine Scientific Earth Observation Microsatellite Program, a multiyear collaborative research and development program funded by the DOST and jointly implemented by the UPD and the DOST-Asti.