The microsatellite research program at Universita' di Bologna

In the Second Faculty of Engineering of the University of Bologna, the Aerospace group in Forlì has started a new microsatellite research program. The first step consists of the design and setup of an amateur radio ground station, recently installed and implemented in the University laboratories. At the same time, researchers, PhD and graduate students are directly involved in the satellite design. The microsatellite weighs about 20kg and consists of a cubical prism, 300mm side, with a modular structure made of six shop-machined Al trays, kept together by eight stainless steel bars. Four Al/Al honeycomb sandwich lateral panels, which are the support structure of glued solar panels, complete the satellite structure. This architecture has been selected in order to have a multi-purpose bus, to be used with minor changes for several missions, accommodating payloads with different volume and power requirements. This paper reports on the current status of the ground station implementation and of the microsatellite bus design and manufacturing.