Development and flight results of TalTech University CubeSat mission

Student Satellite program at TalTech, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia was initiated in 2014 with an aim to impart space technology knowledge to the Estonian students as well as assist towards development of new Space Technologies in Estonia. Two 1-Unit CubeSat named Koit and Hämarik that translates respectively as Dawn and Twilight in Estonian are part of the TalTech Satellite Program. The main scientific mission of the CubeSats was to demonstrate Earth observation and Optical Communication technology. Satellites had two types of cameras, an RGB Camera and an NIR Camera to carry out Earth Observation over Estonia. Testing High Speed Optical communication technology from LEO (Low Earth Orbit) was the second major scientific goal and for this purpose the CubeSats had LED (Light Emitting Diode). Koit CubeSat was successfully launched to space on-board Soyuz rocket on July 5, 2019 and Hämarik CubeSat was launched to Space on September 3, 2020 on-board Arianespace Vega Rocket. Koit CubeSat did not contact the Ground station for more than a year since its launch and it was assumed to be lost but on November 21, 2020 it made the first contact with the Ground Station. Hämarik CubeSat was first contacted on November 15, 2020. The team has been successful in updating software of Hämarik and further work is being done on the software with broader functions. Optical communication has not been tested yet because ground station for optical communication has not been developed yet but a good achievement in the path to optical communication was to see the satellites with small hobby telescope and one of the satellite team member was successful to detect the Hämarik CubeSat on 17 August 2021 which was at a distance of about 792 Kilometres. Satellite team is in contact with the Hämarik and has been successful to download a few thumbnails and is working to establish a quick data connection with it and determine its exact position so that the cameras can be focused towards the Earth in order to get the whole images captured by the CubeSat.