| Satellite name | NILA |
|---|---|
| Form factor | CubeSat |
| Units or mass | 3U |
| Status | Operational? (LinkedIn post about receiving first signal, last checked 2025-04-20) |
| Launched | 2025-03-15 |
| NORAD ID | ? |
| Deployer | EXOpod Nova 12U/16U [Exolaunch] |
| Launcher | Falcon 9 (Transporter-13) |
| Organization | HEX20 |
| Institution | Company |
| Entity type | Commercial |
| Headquarters | India |
| Oneliner |
In-orbit demonstration and elevate the HEX20 AX series satellite bus to TRL9. |
| Description |
In-orbit demonstration and elevate the HEX20 AX series satellite bus to TRL9. NILA will test out HEX20’s spacecraft subsystems in orbit and provide attitude determination data as well performance of a passive magnet attitude control system. NILA will also demonstrate in-orbit innovative deployment mechanisms from DCUBED that uses shape memory polymers. All the spacecraft and payload data will be publicly available for amateur dissemination. HEX20 ground station located at Marian Engineering College Trivandrum will be used for UHF communications. Primary mission objectives:
Due to NILA’s nature as an education and research mission, much of the research work is done by HEX20 employees and undergraduate students at Marian Engineering College. This work is invaluable to students as they learn and become well versed in space science and spacecraft operations. In working on the project, these students become knowledgeable and appreciative of amateur radio art and go on to form the next generation of radio amateurs. NILA CubeSat will beacon once every twenty seconds while in safe and nominal modes. During Nominal operations NILA will continue to beacon, however, it will only downlink science data while over the Hex20 ground station |
| Sources | [1] [2] [3] |
| Photo sources | [1] [2] |
| COTS subsystems |
|
| Subsystems sources | [1] |
| On the same launch |
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Last modified: 2025-04-20
