Next year the new satellite launch facilities at Andøya Spaceport will be in operation, and a satellite from NTNU SmallSatLab will be on-board the first flight!

The 13th of December the German space organization DLR announced the winners of a free seat on the first launch from Andøya, onboard a Spectrum launcher from the company ISAR Aerospace. The NTNU contribution is a 1U CubeSat named FRAMSat-1.

​​​​​​​FRAMSat-1 in the lab. Photo: Orbit NTNU

The satellite is built by students in Orbit NTNU, based on the design of their 2U CubeSat SelfieSat.
FRAMSat-1 was created to show how rapidly a small satellite can be re-designed and built by the Orbit students and to fulfill the dream “a Norwegian satellite launched from Norwegian soil”. We hope that FRAMSat-1 will just be the first of many of those.

In addition to the students from Orbit, we have the Norwegian company Eidsvoll Electronics (EIDEL) onboard with a new solar censor payload, making this project a true joint effort between university students and Norwegian industry. In addition, companies like SIMPRO and Kongsberg support the students in manufacturing and testing. Andøya Space Education is also an important partner in this project and will hopefully help bridge universities with access to space through their new Space Education 2.0 program, giving future students a way to launch their project into space.

The project is funded by the Norwegian Space Agency, the Department of Electronic Systems at NTNU, EIDEL, as well as other partners and sponsors.

FRAMSat-1 mission patch. Image: Orbit NTNU