ANTAEUS one step closer to flying
"The ANTAEUS project was pre-selected in ESA's FLy Your Satellite Design Booster student programme. ANTAEUS was proposed by a multidisciplinary team of students from UC, UBI and UP and is led by the LIP i-Astro group."
The ANTAEUS project presents a mission concept for a 2U CubeSat with the double objective to validate a 2U instrument for future high-energy astrophysics observatories in space and simultaneously perform measurements of intense gamma ray sources in the 100 keV - 10 MeV energy region.
The project was proposed by a multidisciplinary team of a dozen students from the University of Coimbra (UC), University of Beira Interior (UBI) and University of Porto (UP). Rui Curado Silva, researcher in charge of the i-Astro group of LIP, is the Team Leader. José Sousa, also from LIP's i-Astro group, is the Student Leader and also System Manager. UC is the proponent university.
The instrument is based on a CdTe sensor, a flat semiconductor detector with 256 x 256 pixels (each pixel is 55 x 55 μm2), 2 mm thick and about 2 cm2 area. It will have full angular coverage and will allow observing the most intense gamma-ray sources in the sky, namely the Crab nebula and gamma-ray bursts, producing images and performing spectroscopy, temporal variability and polarimetry studies.
The scientific and technological findings of the project will contribute to develop improved instrumentation for high-energy astrophysics missions in two approaches:
- for proposed M-class high-energy astrophysics missions (medium-sized projects) where LIP and UC participate.
- for high-energy astrophysics based on a constellation of CubeSats, capable of providing all-sky observation capability with improved sensitivity, reduced costs and production times,and high redundancy.
CubeSat is a class of miniaturised satellites based on 10 cm cubes, with mass not exceeding 2 kg per unit and using mostly commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components in electronics and structure. They are classified according to the number of cubes, or units (U), used. They are placed in orbit from the ISS or as secondary payloads on launch vehicles.
