Tohoku Univ. developed a 50-kg class microsatellite SPRITE-SAT (RISING), and it was launched on Jan. 23, 2009. The development technique and operation experience are inherited to the development of RISING-2 which is started in July, 2009 by Tohoku Univ. and Hokkaido Univ.

At the time of May, 2011, the fabrication and evaluation tests of engineering model (EM) and the fabrication of flight model (FM) were finished. The launch opportunity has been not decided yet, and the evaluation tests and the update of on-board software are continued.

The satellite has a telescope with 10-cm diameter and 1-m focal length, and it take images with 5-m resolution. It can observe multi-spectrum images using liquid crystal tunable filter as well as RGB color photos. The primary mission is the observation of cumulonimbus clouds in visible near infrared. Also, transient luminous events in upper atmosphere such as sprite are observed using CMOS sensors.

Contents

1. Project

2. System

3. Mission

4. Test

5. Power

A. Special

Contant

Dr. Yuji Sakamoto, Dept. of Aerospace Engineering, Tohoku University