Speaker
Mr
Alain Gaboriaud
(CNES)
Description
In the mythology, JANUS is a god who is the symbol of "the passer". This program initiated by CNES in 2012 proposes to "pass" knowledge and enthusiasm, to young people and more particularly to students. This program is a concrete tool to involve students more actively in space science.
The main objectives of JANUS are as follow:
- promote space activities by supporting students to develop orbital systems made up of:
- Cubesats with a mass of between 1 and 50 kg,
- Ground segment (ground station, control center, mission center).
- Promote in-orbit demonstrators for needs of the scientific and industrial community. This will allow to validate and to improve TRL, in a short time and at low cost, new satellite and instrumental technologies (materials, detectors, components, ASIC, propulsion, attitude control, on board computer, electrical architecture, radio communication, etc.). The results of these technological demonstrations could be used by CNES for the needs of other space missions.
Twelve cubesats are developing in 10 french universities and engineering schools. More 2000 students have been involved from 2012.
In 2017 three french cubesats have been launched. Two double cubesats: XCUBESAT from « Ecole Polytechnique » (Paris) and SPACECUBE from « Ecole des mines » (Paris) have been deployed in orbit from ISS in May. ROBUSTA1B (a simple cubesat) from Montpellier university has been launched by a PSLV from India in June. The two double cubesats are a part of the QB50 network, a belgium project of 50 cubesats to study the thermosphere.
Primary author
Mr
Alain Gaboriaud
(CNES)
