DASOL, the third cubesat of the Korea Astronautical Institute’s Toyosat, has not been heard from for four days.
According to the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Astronautical Institute on the 29th, there are still no signals from DASOL, the third of four Toyosat satellites, and JAC, a cubesat developed by Judstack. It seems to have gotten off the bus, but there is no way to tell if it has reached its destination. In response, a unique frequency has been shared on the SatNogs site, where a network of ground stations around the world can check for signal reception. People from around the world have been searching for Dasol and JAC.
Plans to launch Soyuz-2 in 2022 postponed
The third launch of the Nuri last year was supposed to carry the
The winners of the Toyosat Name It!메이저놀이터
Toyosat was originally scheduled to be launched aboard Russia’s Soyuz-2 space launch vehicle in 2022, but the launch was postponed indefinitely due to the spread of COVID-19 and the Russian-Ukrainian war. However, on October 7 last year, the Space Launch System Project Promotion Committee decided to launch Toyosat on the third launch of the Nuri. In addition, Cheonmunyeon launched the ‘Put Your Name on Toyosat’ event in early 2020 to develop Toyosat. The winners of the event, who applied to have their names engraved on four of the satellites, were also saddened by Dasol’s disappearance.
In the video of the launch of Nuri on the 25th, there are questions about whether Dasol was properly ejected from Nuri, and in the video of the launch of Nuri on the 25th, you can see the broadcast of Toyosat 2, “CubeSat 5 separation confirmation,” at 14 minutes and 51 seconds after the launch of Nuri, and the broadcast of “CubeSat 7 separation confirmation” at 15 minutes and 35 seconds after 40 seconds. There is no announcement that Dasol has been injected. There were no cameras in the direction of the launch, so it was not possible to confirm that it was actually launched. While the Next Generation Small Satellite 2 transmits electrical signals as well as camera images when it is injected, the cube satellites are not electrically connected to Nuri and only receive information about the opening and closing of the injection tube, so it is possible that Dasol’s injection tube entrance was opened but not injected. This is the same situation as getting off the bus and not being able to get your clothes or bags off.
In a briefing after the launch on the 25th, Choi Jong-hwan, head of the Korea Advanced Launch Vehicle Complex at the Korea Aerospace Exploration Agency, said, “In certain injection tubes, data of strange quality has accumulated,” adding, “It will take time to receive and analyze all the telemetry data.”
Weak signals and long attitude control times
No problem with more than one flight.
Since cube satellites are literally tiny, unlike medium and large satellites, the signals they send for communication are often weak and attitude control takes time. In the second launch of Nuri in June last year, Miman, a cube satellite developed by Yonsei University, succeeded in communicating 48 days after launch. According to the Astronomical Society of Korea, it was planned to conduct the world’s first formation flight observation using four Toyosats, but it is possible to conduct a formation flight with only three satellites without Dassault. Although it is possible to fly in formation with as few as two satellites, the observation quality is better when all four satellites are present, so they plan to continue to try to communicate with Dassault.
Meanwhile, as the second generation of small satellites has been successfully placed into an orbit at an altitude of 550 kilometers and is preparing for its mission, there is growing interest in the satellites that will go into space on the fourth through sixth launches of the Nuri program. The fourth launch, scheduled for 2025, will carry a next-generation medium-sized satellite developed by the private Korean Aerospace Industries (KAI) to verify space science technologies such as cell culture experiments and measurements of space plasma and magnetic fields in space. The fifth launch in 2026 and the sixth launch in 2027 will also carry ultra-small satellites developed by private companies.