Polish company Scanway is preparing, in cooperation with German Orbital Systems, the STAR VIBE satellite mission, which will be launched in late June and early July 2022 aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
The objective of the STAR VIBE mission is to test the in-space operation of the high-resolution optical telescope STAR (Small Telescope for Advanced Reconnaissance) and the VIBE (Vision Inspection Boom Experiment) satellite self-diagnostic system developed by Scanway. Its premiere took place during the conference which took place on 10.12.2021 in Scanway’s headquarters located in Wroclaw Technology Park. Not only its name and goals were presented, but also details of Scanway’s cooperation with German Orbital Systems.
Preparations for the STAR VIBE mission began in June 2021. It will be launched into orbit in June/July 2022 aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. Scanway’s optical payload containing a high-resolution telescope and a system for the satellite’s in-flight self-inspection and self-diagnosis will be launched on the Cubesat 6U satellite, prepared by German company German Orbital Systems (GOS), with which Scanway has already collaborated on the ScanSAT satellite.
STAR VIBE mission will allow checking how space conditions: UV radiation, vacuum, demanding temperature cycles, and microgravity influence: electronics allowing to acquisition data from optical sensors, their processing, and recording, mechanical constructions of optical systems, and designs of optical systems aimed at observation of Earth from the orbit, an inspection of changes and potential failures in satellites. The mission will also verify whether such factors affect the quality of the acquired images during on-orbit operations.