LU4EOU
Description: Satellite missions involve daunting tasks; many think these are for experts only. Discover how students and faculty teamed up for the Xatcobeo project.
In 2007, the European Space Agency (ESA) opened opportunities to interested parties to launch the first satellite of Vega. One of those selected for the launch is a university project originally dubbed Dieste. The educational project was later renamed Xatcobeo.
The project, a collaboration between the University of Vigo’s Alen Space and Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aerospacial (INTA), aimed to design and build a CubeSat 1U-type satellite Fernando Aguado Agelet spearheaded the design and construction of the first Galician artificial satellite. Retegal , a corporation owned by the Galician government, supported this non-earth observing mission.
The mission comprised 80 students from various disciplines and ten faculty members who supervised the students. The team was divided into smaller teams to focus on specific critical areas of the project, such as design, engineering, management, and science. INTA provided management and technical support to the team. The project team had to observe ESA’s prescribed standards.
LU4EOU