ION (satellite)

The Illinois Observing Nanosatellite (ION) is the first CubeSat mission developed by the students of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The satellite was lost in the failure of the Dnepr launch on 26 July 2006. Completed in April 2005 as a part of the Illinois Tiny Satellite Initiative,^[1] the satellite took almost four years to be designed, built and tested by an interdisciplinary team of student engineers.^[2] The payloads included a photometer, a micro-thruster and a camera.

Mission objectives

The science and technology objectives of the ION-1 mission were aimed at advancing key enabling technologies for CubeSats:^[3]

Measurement of oxygen intensity in Earth's ionosphere to understand how energy transfers occur across large regions
Test the MicroVacuum Arc Thruster (μVAT), a versatile small satellite propulsion technology for lateral movement and fine-control of attitude
Test the SID processor board designed specifically for small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO)
Test a small CMOS camera for Earth imaging
Demonstrate attitude stabilization on a CubeSat

Future missions at UIUC

ION-1 was built using the IlliniSat-1 bus. The upgraded IlliniSat-2 bus is now under development for missions such as Lower Atmosphere Ionosphere Coupling Experiment (LAICE) and the CubeSail, both to be launched in 2016.^[4]

References

^ [1] ITSI Initiative (CubeSat @ UofI), retrieved 11 January 2014.
^ [2] Archived 2010-08-13 at the Wayback Machine IlliniSat-2, retrieved 11 January 2014.
^ [3] ION Information Sheet, retrieved 11 January 2014.
^ [4] Archived 2014-10-22 at the Wayback Machine NASA to launch two satellites developed by Illinois faculty, retrieved 17 October 2014

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[1] [1] ITSI Initiative (CubeSat @ UofI), retrieved 11 January 2014.

[2] [2] Archived 2010-08-13 at the Wayback Machine IlliniSat-2, retrieved 11 January 2014.

[3] [3] ION Information Sheet, retrieved 11 January 2014.

[4] [4] Archived 2014-10-22 at the Wayback Machine NASA to launch two satellites developed by Illinois faculty, retrieved 17 October 2014

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v t e ← 2005 Orbital launches in 2006 2007 →
January	New Horizons Daichi
February	EchoStar X MTSAT-2 Akari, CUTE-1.7 + APD Arabsat-4A
March	Spainsat, Hot Bird 7A ST-5 FalconSAT-2 Soyuz TMA-8
April	JCSAT-5A COSMIC Astra 1KR Progress M-56 EROS-B Yaogan 1 CALIPSO, CloudSat
May	Kosmos 2420 GOES 13 / EWS-G1 Satmex 6, Thaicom 5
June	Resurs-DK No.1 KazSat-1 Galaxy 16 USA-187, USA-188, USA-189 Progress M-57 Kosmos 2421 USA-184
July	STS-121 (MPLM) INSAT-4C Genesis I Kosmos 2422 BelKA, Baumanets, PicPot, SACRED, ION, Rincon 1, ICECube-1, KUTESat Pathfinder, SEEDS, nCube, HAUSAT-1, MEROPE, CP-2, AeroCube-1, CP-1, Mea Huaka'i, ICECube-2 Arirang-2
August	Hot Bird 8 JCSAT-3A, Syracuse 3B Koreasat 5
September	Shijian 8 STS-115 (ITS P3/4) IGS-3A Chinasat-22A Kosmos 2423 Soyuz TMA-9 Hinode, HIT-SAT, SSSAT USA-190
October	DirecTV-9S, Optus D1, LDREX MetOp-A Progress M-58 Shijian 6C, Shijian 6D STEREO Sinosat-2 XM-4
November	USA-191 Badr-4 USA-192
December	Fengyun 2-05 WildBlue 1, AMC-18 STS-116 (ITS P5, SpaceHab LSM, ANDE-MAA, ANDE-FACL, RAFT1, MARScom, MEPSI-2) MEASAT-3 USA-193 TacSat-2, GeneSat Kiku 8 SAR-Lupe 1 Meridian 1 Kosmos 2424, Kosmos 2425, Kosmos 2426 CoRoT
Launches are separated by dots ( • ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ). Crewed flights are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).