MAGNARO-II Spacecraft - Nanosats Database

Satellite name	MAGNARO-II
Type	CubeSat
Units or mass	2U
Organisation	Nagoya University
Institution	University
Entity	Academic / Education
Headquarters	Japan
Oneliner	Joint CubeSats are separated after spin-up and then continue formation flying. Formation of microsatellites using rotational separation.
Description	A 2U and 1U CubeSat mission. Extended communication distance by relay through two satellites in formation flight. Communication message relay by two satellites in formation flying allows extended range for various experiments of long-range communication by amateur radio (long-range repeater). Two satellites, MAGNARO-II - Tigris and MAGNARO-II - Piscis, share the information of housekeeping data in each satellite and the messages to be relayed. On-board Communication systems for communication with ground station are also used for inter-satellite communication. MAGNARO-II - Tigris-A will receive AX.25 packets set in UNPROTO with MAGNARO- II - Tigris and MAGNARO-II - Piscis as the path. MAGNARO-II - Tigris satellite receives packets transmitted from ground station in even minutes and MMAGNARO-II - Piscis satellite only transmits in odd minutes in order to minimize the interference between uplink and downlink. Formation flight . Propellant-less formation flight using high-spin deployment and differential atmospheric drag. In this formation flight, two satellites (MAGNARO-II - Tigris and MAGNARO-II - Piscis) are initially connected magnetically, and separated to make a formation in-orbit for armature Inter-satellite communication. The satellites relative orbits are actively controlled with atmospheric drag force, and the relative attitude is actively controlled with magnetic torque by MTQ. In the formation flight, the orbit is determined using GPS, and the attitude is determined using both magnetometer and Sun sensor. With these methods, nanosatellites can easily achieve formation flight and provide inter satellite communication capability. Key demonstration for energy efficient technology, which allows long-range communication for Mission 1. MAGNARO-II mission provides longer range amateur communication service than the range provided by a single satellite, which provides unique training and technical investigation opportunities. MAGNARO-II is a unique satellite with spin separation and capability of formation flying (formation range varied from 2km to 500km). The satellites in formation flight allow communication relay through inter-satellite link which extends communication range by thousands of kilometers. This feature allows the amateur community to test communication relay technology on nanosatellite platforms. Any amateur operators can use MAGNARO-II - Tigris and MAGNARO-II - Piscis as repeaters by sending AX.25 packets in UNPROTO when this feature is enabled. Planning a launch from Uchinoura into a 540 km SSO together with KOSEN-2R, WASEDA-SAT-ZERO-II, FSI-SAT21, OrigamiSat-2, Mono-Nikko, Prelude and ARICA-2.
Sources	[1] [2] [3] [4]
Photo sources	[1] [2] [3] [4]
Keywords	Formation flying, Fast spin-up, Intersatellite links

Related Spacecraft

Name	Status	Launcher	Launch date	Orbit
MAGNARO-II - Piscis (MAGNARO-Piscis, Magnaro-II B Child, MAGnetically separating NAno-satellite with Rotation for Orbit control)	Operational? (Object identified, attached during launch)	Electron	2026-04-23	540 km, 97.5 deg
MAGNARO-II - Tigris (MAGNARO-Tigris, Magnaro-II A Parent, MAGnetically separating NAno-satellite with Rotation for Orbit control)	Operational? (Object identified, attached during launch)	Electron	2026-04-23	540 km, 97.5 deg

Last modified: 2026-07-29