Until April 11, 2021 applications for the competition «Scientific Orientation: Open Space» are being accepted on the website of the Russian Schoolchildren Movement. Schoolchildren aged 12 to can apply with their research or practical idea which can be used on a small orbiting nanosatellite of the Earth or the Moon in the "3U-cubesat" format (10 × 10 × 30 cm).
This competition is part of the «On duty for the Planet» program organized by Innovation Assistance Fund, «Talent and Success» Fund, Skoltech University, Roscosmos and Kruzhok movement of National Tehnology Initiative.I.M. Bortnik, the founder of Innovation Assistance Fund, came up with the idea to create a group of school cubesats Space-π at near-Earth orbit in order to raise a generation of specialists who will know how to create and use low-orbit satellite groups and, most importantly, will understand why it is necessary. In the nearest future, this may help to change the difficulties with the usage of space technologies to solve scientific and national economic problems in Russia.
The CubeSat standard was developed in 1999 by California Polytechnic State University and Stanford Universities. Today, the 14th version of the standard is already used. The dimensions of the simplest basic 1U cube are 10 × 10 × 10 cm, and then there are devices "assembled" from the basic cube up to 24U (20 × 30 × 40 cm). It is planned to launch about 100 cubesats in the orbit within several years for the Space-π project.We are creating a ground infrastructure and a global online platform based on this infrastructure for the Space-π project, so that any student from anywhere in the world can experience the technology and become part of the community of like-minded people that is going to form.
On the Space-π website, students will be able to see the Earth with the orbits of all nanosatellites included in the project, and a network of receiving stations from which information can be obtained in real time. LoReTT's technologies will make it possible to quickly receive, process and get up-to-date Earth remote sensing data within the Space-π project and provide access to these for pupils from all over the world. We are open for cooperation!