AYAME Spacecraft - Nanosats Database

Satellite name	AYAME
Form factor	CubeSat
Units or mass	2U
Status	not launched, expected in 2028
Launcher	not launched
Organisation	Chiba Institute of Technology
Institution	University
Entity type	Academic / Education
Nation	Japan
Partners	Chiba Institute of Technology
Oneliner	Demonstrating amateur radio APRS and LoRa, imaging of Okinawa, in-orbit firmware updates, and a custom-built UHF transceiver.
Description	APRS Mission - We provide amateurs all over world with APRS service on 145.825 MHz using 1k2 AFSK. APRS service can be activated by command from ground station, and the maximum duration of continuous operation is 720 minutes. Camera Mission - AYAME is equipped with a camera. The angle of view and resolution of lens is as follow (H)57.3° (V)34.1°, 4608×2592pixels The satellite will downlink the photos taken by the camera and recover them at the ground station. The camera will take pictures of a specific area with magnetic field attitude control. Specific area is Okinawa. The captured image data will be stored in the flash memory onboard the satellite. The image data will be segmented and transmitted via UHF downlink to a ground station, where it will be received and restored. The downlinked images are published on a website. Firmware upload and update demonstration Mission This mission will demonstrate an on-orbit platform for firmware updates. BHU MCU monitors system voltages and sent them to GS. Unlinking the new firmware from GS. BHU MCU updates the firmware. BHU MCU monitors not only system voltages but also system temperatures. Finally downlinking the voltage and temperature sensor data to ground station. The rationale is estimation of upload binary file size by bandwidth. Enabling temperature sensor is appropriate mission volume with the upload file. In future satellite, we want to bigger upload size based on this mission. Hand-build UHF radio Mission - The functions of this radio are shown below. 1)GMSK (AX.25) data packet transmission 2)GMSK (AX.25) data packet reception 3)CW transmission 4)LoRa store and forward mission These communications are performed in the UHF band. Functions 1)-3) operate as cold redundancy of the BUS COM. Function 4) will demonstrate LoRa store & forward. The uplink from general amateur stations to the satellite is performed using LoRa, and the downlink from the satellite to the Chiba Tech ground station and general amateur stations is performed using GMSK. Also, amateurs are able to send LoRa packet and store & forward to Chiba tech ground station.
Sources	[1] [2]
Photo sources	[1]

Last modified: 2026-07-31